Walking. Gossip. Travel.

Tag: Peterborough

  • Peterborough – Peterborough Cathedral (Mary, Queen of Scots)

    Peterborough Cathedral was, for a short while, privileged to be the burial site of two Queens, Katherine of Aragon and Mary, Queen of Scots. Mary was born in 1542 and was rather a threat to Queen Elizabeth since they both have rival claims to the crown. On 8 February 1587 Queen Elizabeth decided that she would have Mary beheaded, whilst she was being held at Fotheringhay Castle.

    From Fotheringhay Castle, Mary was brought to Peterborough Cathedral to be buried, with a grand service being authorised by Queen Elizabeth. There was though some delay with these proceedings, with the body not being brought from Fotheringhay to Peterborough for over five months. It’s also thought that her heart and organs were buried near to where she was executed.

    James I decided to bring his mother’s body to Westminster Abbey in 1612, where her tomb remains to this day. The tomb that he created at Westminster is rather grand to say the least and was designed by William and Cornelius Cure. Peterborough Cathedral was left with just one Queen, which is still more than most cathedrals in the country can offer.

    An information board located near to where the tomb of the Queen was. It’s marked today by Scottish flags which are placed in the nave.

  • Peterborough – Cowgate Parish Burial Ground

    I’ve walked past this plaque lots of times on Cowgate when heading from the railway station to the city centre, but I’ve never noticed it before. It must be the excitement of walking into Peterborough and so I’ve rushed by it at speed.

    There is now absolutely nothing left of the graveyard, as can be seen from the side by side map above. It wasn’t until the 1970s that the graveyard was finally removed to build this lovely big roundabout to serve the needs of the local population. If that wasn’t good enough, part of the former graveyard is now also used as a car park. What a wonderful piece of remembering the dead that was….

    Incidentally though, this site is said to be one of the most haunted areas in Peterborough. There was some bodysnatching which took place here in the 1820s and the reports of ghostly sightings has been put down to that. Although if I was a ghost, I think I’d like to find somewhere more fitting to stay than a roundabout in Peterborough.

    There’s lots more information about the parish burial ground at https://www.peterboroughcivicsociety.org.uk/plaques_blue2.php#ParishBurial.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • Peterborough – Great Northern Hotel

    The Great Northern hotel, located opposite the railway station, was constructed shortly after the station was finished in 1850 and was owned by the rail company from which it takes its name. It’s an impressive building and was one of five hotels which the company owned.

    There is apparently a bar inside the hotel called Sleepers (which CAMRA note relates to the station and not to the sleeping clientele), but I was unsure of the opening hours and assumed that it was closed at lunchtime. I did look to try and work out what was going on, but the only signage that I could see was for the coffee shop Circa 1852 which did seem to be open, but I’ve had enough of coffee shops for today….

    I liked the history that was posted by the entrance to the hotel, noting that the Prussian Crown Prince stayed there in 1863. It was run by British Transport Hotels until it was sold off in 1982 and has since been heavily modernised. I also read that the comedian Ernie Wise was married at the hotel, and I hadn’t previously realised that he was a resident of the city.

    And an advert published in the press in July 1852 when the hotel opened……