Ferry Meadows Caravan & Motorhome Club Site, Peterborough, Cambridgeshire

We woke late this morning, mainly because I had doped myself up with antihistamine last night in the hope of taking full control of my hay-fever. Alas, the change of timing and dose only served to make it harder to crawl out from the sheets! I look forward to the day when the weather forecasters announce that the currently very high levels of pollen have diminished, but then what else should I expect when I go venturing into the countryside green with grass and seed laden crops!  

And more to my discredit, I should have bounced out of bed and served my husband bacon and eggs and anything else he desired on his special morning; it was, after all, his birthday. Instead he had to make do with his habitual Weetabix.

We headed into town, arriving, parking and entering on foot across the River Nene just as the clocks struck 10 am. There were a surprising number of folk about although not as many as when we returned to the pedestrianized main street at midday. 

We spent about two hours in the Peterborough Museum and Gallery, the first place on our touring agenda for the day. The art gallery limits its exhibition of collected works to that which fits in the stair wells, and the galleries were filled with work by local Crispin Heeson, an accumulation of brightly colourful scribbles, none of which would hang well on any home we might live in.

But we were here to learn more about Peterborough and the rest of the building offered us the appropriate education. There is an excellent exhibition about the archaeological excavations at Must Farm, only a short distance from Peterborough and even shorter from Whittlesey. Here the experts dug up evidence that there was human occupation 3,000 years ago, but before everyone gets too excited about that, it must not be forgotten that scientists have found that aborigines were resident in Australia over 40,000 years ago, although they weren’t building themselves round houses over the fenland and constructing causeways.

There is also an excellent exhibition about the prisoners of war held at Norman Cross, another spot on the outskirts of Peterborough, and the beautiful works of art and craft created there during their idle hours. This was the first known purpose built prisoner of war camp in the world and operated between 1797 and 1814. Due to its success, more depots were built to take the vast number of prisoners in the Napoleonic Wars, Dartmoor being the most famous. This we had visited last year and then seen some of the work done by the idle hands, but none of it as intricate and brilliant as that on display here in Peterborough.

Here there were as many as 7,000 prisoners at any one time, guarded by up to 1,000 soldiers and militiamen in two battalions. The prisoners included men and boys from France, Holland and Italy, and some were as young as ten years old.

The gallery reserved for the local history explained that one of the catalysts of Peterborough’s growth was the arrival of the railway in 1845. This lifted the town from rural obscurity and brought jobs, skills, raw materials and markets within easy reach. The railway also brought in new people, including Irish navvies who dug and laid the tracks. In 1861 Peterborough’s population was 7,125, having doubled since 1800, and the railways employed more than 2,000 people, raising the population by 1900 to 35,000. One in every four adults was employed by the rail.

This activity was bolstered by a growing industry in brickmaking in the 1880s, which in turn generated more rail activity. Fletton bricks are remembered by my husband, and so they should be; five million houses in the United Kingdom are apparently built with Peterborough bricks.

The museum is housed in a lovely old building with a chequered past.  In the early 1800s, Thomas Cooke built his house on the site of the site of a Tudor house which had stood here since at least the mid-1500s.  In its time it was considered the grandest house in the city, built in the modern Georgian style.

In 1856, Earl Fitzwilliam bought the property and a year later, the Peterborough Infirmary was moved here, where it remained for the next seventy one years, operating essentially as a hospital. Today there is one room set aside as an exhibition operating theatre offering an array of  fascinating facts of the day.

The hospital moved out in 1928, changing hands once more and soon gifted by Percy Malcolm Stewart to the Museum Society, which has continued to operate under various management since then.

It was midday when we emerged from the museum. Hungry, we set off to the Information Centre to learn where the restaurants were, soon informed and wandered on through the now busy Cathedral Square and down Cowgate Street looking for a restaurant to catch our fancy. We settled on the Drapers Arms, part of the tried and trusted Wetherspoon franchise, and were soon sitting over massive platters of good old wholesome English food washed down by modest quantities of international beverages. Dessert was out of the question; quantities were more than adequate. 

We returned to the centre of town and made our way into the Cathedral precinct, first calling into the cathedral's own information centre set up in one of the adjacent buildings. Here we learned the history of the Cathedral, blow by blow, block by block. It was most interesting and we left keen to see the cathedral for ourselves.

The first monastery was established here in 655, but was subsequently destroyed by the Vikings in 870. Rebuilt as a Benedictine Abbey in the 960s, it managed to survive Hereward the Wake’s attack in 1069, and remained intact until an accidental fire destroyed the second abbey in 1116. It was rebuilt in its present form between 1118 and 1238, becoming the cathedral of the new Diocese of Peterborough in 1541.

The exterior is very impressive, but no more than the interior, a wonderful example of Norman architecture. Round-arched rib vaults and shallow blind arcades line the nave, while up on the painted wooden ceiling, dating from 1220, is an exquisite example of medieval art, one of the most important in Europe.

It was here that James I brought his mother’s, Mary Queen of Scots, decomposing remains several months after she was decapitated at Fotheringhay, before having her dug up again and moved on to Westminster Abbey where her bones still lie.

The second notable body is that of Katherine of Aragon, and here perhaps is the answer to a question which was nagging me.

How could it be that after wholesale dissolution of religious institutions,  Henry VIII decided this abbey should become a Cathedral and live on in contradiction to everything else going on? 

Katherine of Aragon was Henry VIII’s first wife, and had been a good and loyal wife for many years, but had failed to produce a son and heir. He needed to replace her with a son-producing breeder, and divorced her in that very messy manner that served to change the history of England. Although he did not attend her funeral, it has been suggested that his decision regarding the cathedral was a memorial to Katherine, who is buried here.  I like to think this was so.

We enjoyed our wander through the cathedral armed just with a small pocket guide, but were disappointed we had arrived too late for a tour. We may return tomorrow, but the jury is still out on that.

Back home, we were happy to put our feet up and were satisfied with a sandwich well after our normal 6 pm dinnertime.