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.
A city built
in layers.
Peterborough’s story begins long before there was a city, a cathedral, or even a place called Peterborough.
For thousands of years, people have lived, travelled, traded and worshipped in the landscapes around the River Nene and the edge of the Fens. What they left behind is an extraordinary record of change: prehistoric archaeology, Roman settlement, medieval faith and power, rural communities, industry, railways, migration and the making of a modern city.
Peterborough is not one period of history. It is thousands of years of human stories layered onto the same landscape.
Older than the city
Peterborough sits where river valley, limestone country and fenland meet. Long before its streets were laid out, communities were shaping and moving through this landscape. At Flag Fen, remarkable Bronze Age archaeology preserves a world more than three thousand years old.
Explore prehistoric PeterboroughA place of national importance
The monastery founded at Medeshamstede in the seventh century became one of the great religious houses of medieval England. Its successor, Peterborough Cathedral, still dominates the city today and connects Peterborough to saints, monarchs, reformers and some of the defining events of English history.
Discover Peterborough CathedralA city transformed
Roads, river trade and eventually the railway connected Peterborough ever more closely with the rest of Britain. Engineering, brickmaking and industry changed its scale and character, while later expansion created new neighbourhoods and helped turn an ancient market and cathedral centre into the city we recognise today.
Explore the city’s collectionsAlways becoming
Peterborough has continually been remade by the people who chose to make their lives here. Workers, newcomers, writers, entrepreneurs and generations of families have all added to its identity. Its history is not confined to monuments: it survives in communities, landscapes, memories and everyday life.
Meet Peterborough’s people
There is more than one way
to explore the story.
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 →
Old
Scarlett
Peterborough's legendary sexton lived through almost the entire Tudor age and is remembered for helping to inter two queens.
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 →Industrial Peterborough
From beneath the city to across Britain
The clay that helped build Britain.
One of Peterborough's most important contributions to modern Britain began beneath the fields around Fletton.
Here, an unusual layer of Oxford Clay helped create a brick that could be manufactured on an extraordinary scale. The name Fletton became known across the building industry, while Peterborough's brickworks transformed the landscape, employed generations of workers and supplied millions of homes.
Peterborough's Brick Country
London Brick Company
