Discover Peterborough
Peterborough History
From prehistoric settlements and Roman roads to medieval kings, queens, rebels, railways and a rapidly changing modern city, Peterborough has been shaped by more than 3,500 years of extraordinary history. Explore the people, places and events that made Peterborough what it is today.
From Jurassic seas
to the city we know today.
Go deeper into the places, people and turning points that shaped Peterborough. Pick a chapter and travel through a story millions of years in the making.
Jurassic Peterborough
Enter the lost Oxford Clay sea of giant fish, plesiosaurs, pliosaurs and marine reptiles.
Flag Fen
Timber, water, ritual and one of Britain's extraordinary prehistoric landscapes.
Must Farm
Britain's Bronze Age time capsule.
Roman Peterborough
Durobrivae, roads, pottery and power.
A City of Its Own
The boundaries changed. Peterborough remained.
Peterborough Cathedral
More than 1,350 years of monastery, abbey, cathedral, rebellion, queens and national history.
Two Queens
Katharine of Aragon and Mary, Queen of Scots. Two extraordinary stories. One cathedral.
Norman Cross
The world's first purpose-built prisoner-of-war camp.
The Lines That Built a City
How the railway transformed Peterborough into one of Britain's great junction cities.
Built on Brick
The Oxford Clay that helped build Britain.
Engineering the World
Royce, Perkins and the makers who powered the world.
The New Town
The plan that remade Peterborough.
Peterborough Business History
Railways, engineering, bricks, travel, publishing, finance and continual reinvention.
History Timeline
Travel through the whole story.
Peterborough in Objects
History through the things that survived.
History has
a human face.
Kings and queens. Poets and pioneers. Workers, thinkers, rebels and remarkable local characters. Peterborough's story was not simply shaped by buildings and events, but by the people who lived it.
Meet the people of Peterborough
Katherine
of Aragon
Queen of England, diplomat and regent. Her burial at Peterborough gave the city an enduring place in one of the defining stories of Tudor history.
Discover her story →
Maxim
Born Keith Andrew Palmer in Peterborough, Maxim developed his voice through the city's reggae sound-system culture before becoming the commanding MC and vocalist of The Prodigy.
Discover his story →
John
Clare
Born in Helpston, Clare transformed the fields, wildlife, voices and changing landscapes around Peterborough into some of England's greatest nature poetry.
Discover his story →
Henry
Royce
Born at Alwalton and apprenticed in Peterborough's railway works, Royce went on to become one of Britain's most celebrated engineers.
Discover his story →