The founding legend of Christian Peterborough begins with a hunt that went wrong. Wulfade, son of King Wulfhere of Mercia, was chasing a hart when the animal fled to the cell of St Chad. Chad hid the creature under branches and leaves, and when the young prince...
Hereward the Wake, the last Englishman to hold out against the Normans, once had designs on Peterborough. He planned to strip the abbey and burn the town. On the night before he meant to do it, an old man came to him in a dream. The visitor was splendidly dressed,...
Peterborough has the oldest written account of the Wild Hunt anywhere in England, and the monks who recorded it were quite sure of what they had heard. In 1127 a Norman abbot named Henry de Angeli arrived to take charge of the abbey. The monks disliked him from the...