Peterborough Cathedral

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Plan

Peterborough Cathedral is dedicated to Saint Peter, Saint Paul and Saint Andrew, and is very unusual amongst medieval cathedrals in Britain because of its triple front (dominated by the statues of the three saints) and overall asymmetrical appearance.

1 History
2 External links

[edit] History

[edit] Saxon origins

The original church was founded as Medeshampstede Abbey by King Peada of Mercia in 655 as one of the first centres of Christianity in central England. The monastic settlement with which the church was associated lasted until it was destroyed by Vikings in 870. In the mid 10th century monastic revival (in which Ely Cathedral and Ramsey Abbey were also refounded) a Benedictine Abbey was created and endowed in 966 by Athelwold, Bishop of Winchester from what remained of the earlier abbey, with "a basilica [church] there furbished with suitable structures of halls, and enriched with surrounding lands" and more extensive buildings.[1] It was dedicated to St Peter, and came to be called a burgh, hence the town surrounding the abbey was eventually named Peter-burgh. The community was further revived in 972 by Dunstan, Archbishop of Canterbury.

Only a small section of the foundations of the Saxon church remain beneath the south transept but there are several significant artefacts including Saxon carvings such as the 'Hedda Stone', from the earlier building.

[edit] Norman and medieval

The French casket made about 1180 for Benedict - as Prior of Canterbury Cathedral, a witness to the assassination - to take some of Becket's relics to Peterborough Abbey when he became its Abbot

Although damaged during the struggle between the Norman invaders and local folk-hero, Hereward the Wake, it was repaired, and continued to thrive until destroyed by an accidental fire in 1116.

This event necessitated the building of a new church in the Norman style, begun by Abbot John de Sais in 1118. By 1193 the building was completed to the western end of the Nave, including the central tower and the decorated wooden ceiling of the nave. The ceiling, completed between 1230 and 1250, still survives. It is unique in Britain and one of only four such ceilings in the whole of Europe. ^[1] (The others are at Zillis, Switzerland, Hildesheim in Germany and Dädesjö, Sweden. The longest of these is less than half the length of Peterborough's ceiling. It has been over-painted twice, once in 1745, then in 1834, but still retains the character and style of the original.

The church was largely built of Barnack limestone from quarries on its own land, and it was paid annually for access to these quarries by the builders of Ely Cathedral and Ramsey Abbey in thousands of eels (eg 4000 each year for Ramsey). [2]

Then, in completing the Western transept and adding the Great West Front Portico in 1237, the medieval masons switched over to the new Gothic style. Apart from changes to the windows, the insertion of a porch to support the free-standing pillars of the portico and the addition of a ‘new’ building at the east end around the beginning of the 16th century, the structure of the building remains essentially as it was on completion almost 800 years ago. The completed building was consecrated in 1238 by Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln, within whose diocese it then fell.

The Norman tower was rebuilt in the Decorated Gothic style in about 1350-1380 (its main beams and roof bosses survive). Between 1496 and 1508 the Presbytery roof was replaced and the 'New Building', a rectangular building built around the end of the Norman eastern apse, with Perpendicular fan vaulting (probably designed by John Wastell, the architect of King's College Chapel, Cambridge and the Bell Harry Tower at Canterbury Cathedral), was added.

The Abbey's relics included the supposed arm of St Oswald (which disappeared from its chapel, probably during the Reformation, despite a watch-tower having been built for monks to guard its reliquary) and various contact relics of Thomas Becket, brought from Canterbury in a special reliquary by its Prior Benedict (who had witnessed Becket's assassination) when he was 'promoted' to Abbot of Peterborough.

[edit] Tudor

In 1541, following Henry VIII's Dissolution of the Monasteries, the relics were lost but the church survived by being selected as the cathedral of the new Diocese of Peterborough. This may have been related to the fact that Henry's former queen, Catherine of Aragon, had been buried there in 1536. Her grave can still be seen, and is nowadays honoured by visitors and often decorated with flowers and pomegranates (her symbol). It carries the legend "Catharine the Queen", a title she was denied at the time of her death.

In 1587, the body of Mary Queen of Scots was also buried here after her execution at nearby Fotheringhay Castle, but was later removed to Westminster Abbey on the orders of her son, King James I of England.

[edit] Civil War to present

West prospect in the seventeenth century

The cathedral was vandalised during the English Civil War in 1643. Almost all the stained glass and the medieval choir stalls were destroyed, and the high altar and reredos were demolished, as were the cloisters and Lady Chapel. All the monuments and memorials of the Cathedral were damaged or destroyed also.

Some of the damage was repaired during the 17th and 18th centuries. In 1883, extensive restoration work began, with the interior pillars, the central tower, the choir and the west front being completely rebuilt, and new hand-carved choir stalls, cathedra (bishop's throne) and choir pulpit and the marble pavement and high altar being added.