Walking. Gossip. Travel.

Category: UK

  • Peterborough – Queen’s Head

    The Queen’s Head pub is located just outside the Queensgate Centre in Peterborough and it has gone through numerous iterations over recent years. It has been known as HGs (after HG Wells), the Grapevine and Clarkes (which was a fine dining restaurant), but the Charles Wells brewery have now decided to name the pub the Queen’s Head.

    Rather a brave statement.

    There’s a quirky feel to the pub which I rather liked, with the building being much larger inside than I had imagined.

    This is Young’s London Gold, which I ordered before I realised that the pub stocked Young’s London Stout. London Gold is in my view a pretty generic session beer and although it was well kept and tasted fine, I wasn’t tempted to have another.

    The interior of the pub was clean and bright, although most of the seating seems to be catering for those customers who are dining. The pub specialises in pizzas and pots, the latter of which is defined as meals cooked and served in one pot such as mac & cheese, lasagne, curry and tagine. I looked at the menu on-line (for reasons mentioned below) and it seemed to offer something a little different which I liked.

    The lack of menus in the pub was though a little confusing to me, as they didn’t have any on the tables. This confused another pair of customers who walked back out, and none of the staff noticed them leave. Although I did, I was rather busy people watching. There also isn’t a lunch-time menu in the pub, which I had expected and I’d probably have ordered from if they had it. I’m sure that I could have gone to a staff member and been given a menu, but I have an aversion to go hunting when not particularly hungry.

    The pub service was efficient and polite, although I was rather disregarded when a customer known to the barman came in. The reviews for the pub are though really good, so there doesn’t appear to be anything particularly wrong with the management. It was also clean and tidy, so it seemed like a comfortable environment for those dining, and I also felt comfortable in the bar area. I got the impression that the food was pretty decent and it seemed like a reliable place for those wanting to bring a group of people to dine.

  • Santon Downham – St. Mary the Virgin Church (Benjamin Matthews)

    Following my visit to St. Mary the Virgin Church in Santon Downham, I took a brief look at some of the gravestones in the churchyard. I’m interested in random gravestones which are becoming hard to read (I really must get out more….) and trying to ascertain a little more about the individuals. Random really is the word for this.

    This is the gravestone of Benjamin Matthews who died on 17 July 1894 at the age of 66. He was an Anglican who was born in 1828, marrying Elizabeth in 1867. In 1891 Matthews lived at High Lodge, now within the Forestry Commission site, and worked as a farm steward. He lived with his wife and also his niece, Alice Matthews who died in 1922. Also buried at the plot is his wife Elizabeth, who died at the age of 82 on 19 July 1910.

    Unfortunately that was about all that I could find out….

  • Santon Downham – St. Mary the Virgin Church

    On my Brandon walk we visited St. Mary the Virgin church at Santon Downham, one of the most historically complex churches that I’ve visited recently. Its location by the edge of Thetford Forest have given the building the rather suitable name of ‘The Church in the Forest’.

    The nave and chancel of the current church date to the twelfth century, but it was built on the site of a Saxon wooden church. The tower is later and was constructed between 1460 and 1500.

    The doors on both the north and south walls of the church are contemporary to the nave, so are twelfth century, although they look modified.

    The exterior of the building has numerous former windows and entrances, some of which have been blocked up. This is the former entrance to a chapel, which at some point has been demolished. I had assumed that this took place following the Reformation, but it seems that it might be a later removal.

    The stone base of what was once a free standing preaching cross, or the site of an external pulpit.

    The font dates to the thirteenth or fourteenth century.

    The church’s interior and the rood screen.

    A partially exposed window which was filled in long ago, with the window on the right created to replace it. I assume that this was to create more light inside the church.

    The altar.

    The dreaded, since in retrospect they often are, Victorian restoration mainly took place here in 1894. The phrase “new interior of walls” often means that history was faffed about with to make it even more confusing for me to work out. Another newspaper called the restoration “extensive and substantial”, so I imagine the interior was modified to a considerable degree. Certainly the impressive high pews, which a newspaper said were “cupboards into which you enter, shut the door and sit on the shelf” were replaced with “decent oak seats”. Personally, I imagine the high pews looked rather gorgeous.

    Stained glass.

    I’ll have to go back to this church as I’d like to understand a little more about what is going on with its history. There are also some interesting tablets inside the church which I didn’t have time to look at properly. It was pleasing to see that the church was open on a Wednesday in early January, and the flowers inside the church showed what wonderful local volunteers they must have.

  • Brandon – LDWA Walk

    Today was a little 17-mile walk that I led for the LDWA, although due to circumstances beyond my control, it turned out at 16 miles. The circumstances beyond my control were that unusually I didn’t make any mistakes, I had assumed my incompetence would add one mile on at least….. Although I did manage to miss the mausoleum, which was slightly unfortunate.

    Anyway, 17 people turned up and all went well (or at least as well as can be expected for my unreccied walks) and there are some random landscape photos below.

    The walk started in Brandon and went through to Brandon County Park, which was the first toilet stop. I felt sorry for the electrician who had at that moment started to fix a light inside the male toilet entrance, and then faced a queue of ten people wanting to go in. The walk then went to High Lodge, the Forestry Commission site, and then onto the abandoned village of Santon.

    We visited a couple of churches as well, I shall blog about those separately, these were All Saints Church in Santon and St. Mary the Virgin in Santon Downham. I’ll put photos of people, and a photo of an adder warning sign, on the Norfolk & Suffolk LDWA blog in due course   🙂

  • Peterborough – Peterborough Cathedral (Hedda Stone)

    Peterborough Cathedral is very proud of the Hedda Stone and it is located behind the main altar. It is around 1,250 years old and carved on it are the representations of twelve religious figures, six on each side of the stone.

    Hedda was an early Abbot and he, and around 83 others, were killed by the Danish army. Some books say that this stone was allegedly placed over his burial site in the medieval period, before the stone was later brought into the Cathedral. I’m not exactly sure where his burial site was, so this explanation isn’t entirely convincing to me.

    There are seemingly also two explanations for the holes in the stone, one is that this is where candles are placed, the second reason is that they are slots for carrying poles. There is though more agreement about the figures on the stone, with St. Peter on the right hand side, holding the keys to heaven.

    There seems to be a fair amount of conflicting information about this stone, but the web-site at http://www.megalithic.co.uk/article.php?sid=13023 seems to have the most clarity.

  • Peterborough – Peterborough Cathedral (Monks’ Cemetery)

    Tucked away at the east end of Peterborough Cathedral are these stone coffins, which were discovered during Victorian excavations. The coffins were in the monks’ graveyard and it wasn’t known who was buried in them, it could either be monks or those who had made a financial contribution towards the Abbey. It’s thought that the burials date to around the twelfth century, with the stone coffins now looking perhaps a little forlorn in their current location.

  • Peterborough – Peterborough Cathedral (John Chambers Tomb)

    Bishop John Chambers, whose tomb is located in Peterborough Cathedral, was the last Abbot of Peterborough Abbey and the Cathedral’s first Bishop. Chambers was the only person to have been able to maintain his role during the transition between the status of Abbey and Cathedral.

    Chambers seems to have been well connected to have been able to maintain his position, although the King’s decision to build a tomb to Katherine of Aragon in the Abbey is likely to have been a strong influence as well. He had originally been appointed as Abbot in 1528 by Thomas Wolsey and Chambers was sensible enough to sign the Oath of Supremacy in 1535. Chambers was also present in 1538 when Katherine of Aragon was buried in the building and he remained closely connected to senior figures in the Royal court.

    There were another two memorials in the Cathedral to Chambers, although both of these were destroyed when Parliamentarian troops raided the building during the English Civil War. The memorial tomb that does exist also looked heavily worn and damaged, I assume that this damage was again caused during the English Civil War.

    Chambers did financially very well out of the Dissolution arrangements and it could be argued that he sold out his principles to do so. Although, without him selling out it’s possible that Peterborough Cathedral might not exist today.

  • Peterborough – Peterborough Cathedral (Edward Bigland Tomb)

    The tomb of Edward Bigland, who died at the age of 50 on 18 May 1760, and is buried at Peterborough Cathedral.

    This is Bigland’s baptism record, not the most beautifully presented and organised of documents, but nonetheless it has survived and it shows he was born on 15 July 1710 and was baptised on 21 July 1710.

    His first wife was Elizabeth, the daughter of Charles Pitfield, and they had no children. I can’t quite work out where and when she died, but an Elizabeth Bigland was buried at St. James’s Church in Piccadilly in 1741. Back then this was in Middlesex, just a short distance away from where her Pitfield family home was in Hoxton.

    Edward Bigland married in 1743 for the second time, to the widow of the antiquary, Dr. White Kennet, who was the son of the Bishop of Peterborough of the same name, and with her Bigland had four children. These were Edward, Mary, Lucy-Eliza and Orme (also known as Anne and Orme was the name of Bigland’s mother).

  • Peterborough – Travelodge

    My last trip of 2018 was to Peterborough, primarily because there was a Travelodge offer of three nights for a total of less than £60. Given that I had wanted to see Peterborough Cathedral and Peterborough Museum, and also since I had been meaning to visit the city for some time, this seemed a suitable bargain.

    The hotel, known as Peterborough Central, is located around a five-minute walk from the city centre. It’s not a particularly large hotel and it seems to be in an area of Peterborough which hasn’t fared particularly well over the last couple of years, it’s opposite a former Liquid nightclub which is boarded up and also opposite a Jimmy’s restaurant which has suffered the same fate.

    The staff at reception seemed rather jovial and offered a really friendly welcome, so all seemed well there. The room was relatively large, although slightly spartan, and it felt a little bit grubby. I couldn’t work out why the hot water didn’t smell entirely right, I can only assume their hot water tank is perhaps in need of some, well, fixing. But, given the room price and the central location, it would feel wrong complaining too much about the situation.

    I’m not sure that much good can come from these signs, as do the cleaning staff really just ignore the rooms where guests don’t put these on the door?

    The staff were generous when I asked for milk and they seemed to take every opportunity that they could to engage. This Travelodge is one which doesn’t have its own restaurant, as there are sufficient local dining options to mean one isn’t needed, which also means that they don’t do the all you can eat breakfast. Not that that’s a great loss to me since I wouldn’t have had it anyway, but it may have been an option some guests would have preferred.

    I didn’t encounter any noise issues during my stay, although the rooms on one side of the hotel do overlook the road. Given the prices that were being charged for this room, which seemed rather low for the week before Christmas, I thought it represented decent value for money. Perhaps Peterborough isn’t seen by the general public as a go-to destination for mid-December…

  • Peterborough – Railway Station and LNER

    It’s not very high on the list of things to worry about in the UK, but I was just thinking what a poorly operated railway station Peterborough is in numerous ways. Although I don’t need to charge any devices, I’m not sure shoving power points up the wall and forcing customers to pay to use the charger is particularly good customer service.

    I was getting ready to write an e-mail of complaint to Greater Anglia but I’ve remembered that this isn’t one of their stations, it’s LNER. So not much point bothering to write to them. But it makes me wonder whether Greater Anglia should be given the railway station to manage, since they’ve been steadily improving facilities in tens of other stations in other parts of East Anglia. Including lots of new waiting rooms with power points included, and not stuck half way up the wall.