Peterborough is a city in the eastern part of England. It is located in Cambridgeshire, 120 km north of London. Settlements in this area existed in times immemorial. Near the city archaeologists discovered perfectly preserved wooden structure, which dates back to the X century BC. The main architectural landmark of modern Peterborough is the local Gothic Cathedral of the Holy Apostles Peter, Paul and Andrew. It was started to be built in 1138, on the site of older churches, the earliest of which appeared in the 7th century. It took 120 years to erect the temple. Later the sacral building was reconstructed and got its final look in the 16th century. In the temple there is a 1200-year-old carved stone of Gedda, and Queen Catherine of Aragon is also buried here. The church of St. John of the early fifteenth century is also preserved.

History
Etymology
The original name of the town was Medeshamstede. The name changed to Burg from the late tenth century, perhaps after Abbot Kenulf built a defensive wall around the abbey and eventually became Peterborough; the town does not appear to have been a town until the twelfth century. The contrasting form of Gildenburg is also found in the 12th-century history of the abbey, in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle’s version of Peterborough, and in the history of the abbey by Friar Hugh Candideous.

Early history.
Modern Peterborough is the last of a number of settlements that, at one time or another, benefited from its location, where the Nene leaves large areas of permanently drained land for swamps. Remains of Iron Age settlement and what is considered religious activity can be seen at the Flag Fen archaeological site east of the city center. The Romans established a fortified garrison town at Durobriva on Hermine Street, five miles (8 km) west of Water Newton, around the middle of the first century AD. The earliest appearance of Durobriva among the surviving records is in the Antoninus Route of the late 2nd century. There was also a large 1st century Roman fort at Longthorpe, designed to house half a legion or about 3,000 soldiers; it may have been founded around 44-48 AD. Peterborough was an important area of pottery production in the Roman period, supplying wares from the Nene Valley that were sold even in Cornwall and the Antonine wall in Caledonia.

The original name of Peterborough is shown as Medeshamstede; this may have been an English settlement before 655 AD, when Sequulf founded a monastery on land given to him for this purpose by Peada of Mercia, who had converted to Christianity and for a time was ruler of the smaller Middle Angles. His brother Wolfer killed his own sons, converted in the same way, and then completed the monastery by atonement.

Here in 1069 or 1070 Wake raged through the city. The indignant Abbot Turold built a fort or castle, which, after his name, was called Mont Turold: this hill, or knoll, is outside the garden of the benefice, now called Toot Hill, though in 1848 Tot Hill or Toot Hill. The abbey church was rebuilt and greatly enlarged in the 12th century. The Peterborough Chronicle, a version of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, contains unique information about the history of England after the Norman Conquest, written here by monks in the 12th century. It is the only known prose history in English between the Conquest and the late 14th century. The townspeople received their first charter from “Abbot Robert” – probably Robert Sutton (1262-1273). The place suffered greatly during the war between King John and the Confederate barons, many of whom took refuge in the monastery here and in Crowland Abbey, from whose shelters they were driven by royal soldiers, who plundered the religious houses and carried off great treasures. . Abbey Church became one of Henry VIII’s surviving, more secular cathedrals in 1541, being valued at dissolution (in the Royal Books) as having an income of 1972.7 shillings a year.

When the Civil War broke out, Peterborough was divided between the supporters of King Charles I and the Long Parliament. The town lay on the border of the Eastern Association of Counties, which sided with Parliament, and the war reached Peterborough in 1643, when soldiers arrived in the city to attack the Royalist strongholds at Stamford and Crawland. Royalist forces were defeated within weeks and retreated to Burleigh House, where they were captured and sent to Cambridge. While the parliamentary soldiers were at Peterborough, however, they sacked the cathedral, destroying the Lady Chapel, the chapter house, the cloister, the high altar and choir, and the medieval decorations and records.

Housing and sanitary improvements were made in accordance with the provisions of an Act of Parliament passed in 1790; and in 1839 an Act was passed to build a jail to replace the two previously standing. After the dissolution the Dean and Chapter, who succeeded the Abbot as Lords of the Manor, appointed the Chief Bailiff, and the Constables and other city officials were elected according to their court; but this ended when the municipal district was incorporated in 1874 under the Mayor, six Aldermen, and eighteen Councilors. Among the privileges insisted upon by the rector as early as the 13th century was a prison for criminals at Sauk in Peterborough. In 1576 Bishop Edmund Scambler sold the possession of the hundred of Nassaburg, which amounted to Soca, to Queen Elizabeth I, who gave it to Lord Burleigh, and from that time until the 19th century he and his descendants, the Earls and Marquesses. Exeter had a separate prison for prisoners arrested at Soca. The abbot used to hold four fairs, of which two, the St. Peter’s Fair, established in 1189 and later held on the second Tuesday and Wednesday of July, and the Brigge Fair, established in 1439 and held later on the first Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. in October, were purchased by the corporation from the church commissioners in 1876. The bridge fair, as it is now known, donated to the abbey by King Henry VI, has survived. Prayers were once said at the morning service in the cathedral for the opening of the fair, followed by a civic proclamation and a sausage dinner in the town hall, which continues to this day. The mayor traditionally leads the procession from the town hall to the fair, where the proclamation is read, urging all people to “behave soberly and courteously and pay their fair dues and demands in accordance with the laws of the area and the rights of the city. Peterborough.”

Modern History
Railroad lines began locally in the 1840s, but it was the opening of the Great Northern Railroad line from London to York in 1850 that transformed Peterborough from a market town into an industrial center. Lord Exeter opposed the railroad running through Stamford, so Peterborough, situated between the two main terminals in London and Doncaster, increasingly developed as a regional hub.

Combined with extensive local clay deposits, the railroad allowed for large-scale brick production and distribution. The area was the leading brick producer in Great Britain for much of the twentieth century. Brick production had been a small seasonal craft since the early nineteenth century, but during the 1890s successful experimentation at Fletton using harder clays from a lower level led to a much more efficient process. The dominance of the market during this period by the London Brick Company, founded by the prolific Scottish builder and architect John Catles Hill, resulted in some of the country’s most famous landmarks built using the ubiquitous Fletton brick. Perkins Engines was founded in Peterborough in 1932 by Frank Perkins, creator of the Perkins diesel engine. Thirty years later, more than a tenth of Peterborough’s population worked here, mostly in Eastfield. Baker Perkins moved from London to Westwood, where His Majesty Peterborough Prison is now located, in 1903, and then Peter’s Brotherhood to Walton in 1906; both manufacturers of industrial equipment, they too became major employers in the city. British Sugar is still headquartered in Woodston, although the beet sugar factory that opened there in 1926 was closed in 1991.

Norwich and Peterborough (N&P) was formed by the merger of the Norwich Building Society and Peterborough Building Society in 1986. It was the ninth largest building society at the time of its merger with the Yorkshire Group in 2011. N&P continued to operate under its own Lynch Wood brand until 2018. Before merging with Midlands Co-op in 2013, Anglia Regional, Britain’s fifth largest cooperative society, was also based in Peterborough, where it was founded in 1876. began operations as Central England Co-op in 2014.