Peterborough Cathedral

Peterborough Cathedral
Cathedral Church of St Peter, St Paul and St Andrew

Peterborough Cathedral
52°34′21″N 0°14′20″W / 52.5725°N 0.238889°W / 52.5725; -0.238889Coordinates: 52°34′21″N 0°14′20″W / 52.5725°N 0.238889°W / 52.5725; -0.238889
Location Peterborough, Cambridgeshire
Country England
Denomination Church of England
Website www.peterborough- cathedral.org.uk
Architecture
Style Romanesque/Gothic
Years built 1118–1237
Specifications
Nave length 147m
Height 44m
Number of towers 3
Administration
Diocese Peterborough (since 1542)
Province Canterbury
Clergy
Bishop(s) Donald Allister
Dean Charles Taylor
Precentor Bruce Ruddock
Canon(s) Jonathan Baker, Canon Missioner
Ian Black, Vicar of Peterborough
Laity
Director of music Steven Grahl
Organist(s) David Humphreys

Peterborough Cathedral, properly the Cathedral Church of St Peter, St Paul and St Andrew – also known as Saint Peter's Cathedral[1] in the United Kingdom – is the seat of the Anglican Bishop of Peterborough, dedicated to Saint Peter, Saint Paul and Saint Andrew, whose statues look down from the three high gables of the famous West Front. Although it was founded in the Anglo-Saxon period, its architecture is mainly Norman, following a rebuilding in the 12th century. With Durham and Ely Cathedrals, it is one of the most important 12th-century buildings in England to have remained largely intact, despite extensions and restoration.

Peterborough Cathedral is known for its imposing Early English Gothic West Front (façade) which, with its three enormous arches, is without architectural precedent and with no direct successor. The appearance is slightly asymmetrical, as one of the two towers that rise from behind the façade was never completed (the tower on the right as one faces the building), but this is only visible from a distance.

History

Roman Period

Archaeological evidence around and underneath the Cathedral indicates that there was a Roman building on this site, including evidence of a boundary ditch and monumental stonework. This may indicate a substantial building, possibly a temple or monumental arch.

Anglo-Saxon origins

The original church, known as "Medeshamstede", was founded in the reign of the Anglo-Saxon King Peada of the Middle Angles in about 655 AD, as one of the first centres of Christianity in central England.[2] The monastic settlement with which the church was associated lasted at least until 870, when it was supposedly destroyed by Vikings. In an alcove of the Lady Chapel, lies an ancient stone carving: the Hedda Stone. This medieval carving of 12 monks, six on each side, commemorates the destruction of the Monastery and the death of the Abbot and Monks when the area was sacked by the Vikings in 864. The Hedda Stone was likely carved sometime after the raid, when the monastery slipped into decline.[3]

In the mid 10th century monastic revival (in which churches at Ely and Ramsey were also refounded) a Benedictine Abbey was created and endowed in 966, principally by Athelwold, Bishop of Winchester, from what remained of the earlier church, with "a basilica [church] there furbished with suitable structures of halls, and enriched with surrounding lands" and more extensive buildings which saw the aisle built out to the west with a second tower added. The original central tower was, however, retained.[4] 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.[2][5]

In around 1000AD a monk from Peterborough Abbey stole the arm of St Oswald from Bamburgh Castle. he presented the relic to the Abbot of Peterborough in an effort to gain favour. The arm disappeared during the reformation but the Chapel dedicated to St Oswald still stands within the Cathedral. During this time, possibly due to the popularity of the relic, the monastery's wealth increased dramatically, so it was often nicknamed 'Guildenburgh' - the 'Golden Borough'.

This newer church had as its major focal point a substantial western tower with a "Rhenish helm" and was largely constructed of ashlars. Only a small section of the foundations of the Anglo-Saxon church remain beneath the south transept but there are several significant artefacts, including Anglo-Saxon carvings such as the Hedda Stone, from the earlier building.

In 2008, Anglo-Saxon grave markers were reported to have been found by workmen repairing a wall in the cathedral precincts. The grave markers are said to date to the 11th century, and probably belonged to "townsfolk".[6]

Relics

The existing mid-12th-century records of Hugh Candidus, a monk, list the Abbey's reliquaries as including two pieces of swaddling clothes which wrapped the baby Jesus, pieces of Jesus' manger, a part of the five loaves which fed the 5,000, a piece of the raiment of Mary the mother of Jesus, a piece of Aaron's rod, and relics of St Peter, St Paul and St Andrew – to whom the church is dedicated.[7]

The supposed arm of Oswald of Northumbria disappeared from its chapel, probably during the Reformation, despite a watch-tower having been built for monks to guard its reliquary. Various contact relics of Thomas Becket were 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.

These items underpinned the importance of what is today Peterborough Cathedral. At the zenith of its wealth just before the Reformation it had the sixth largest monastic income in England, and had 120 monks, an almoner, an infirmarian, a sacristan and a cellarer.

The Norman Period

The nave
Plan

En route from York to Hastings King Harold's army likely stopped in Peterborough. Abott Leofric and other accompanied Harold south, Leofric died on the way, and the remainder of the party were killed at the Battle of Hastings. Following this, in 1070, local folk-hero Hereward the WakeAraided the monastery with an army of Danish mercenaries in order to stop the wealth of Peterborough falling into the hands of the new Norman Abbot.

In 1116 the second monastic building on the site is destroyed by an accidental fire, thought to have been started from an unattended fire in the bakery. This event necessitated the building of a new church in the Norman style, begun by Abbot John de Sais on 8 March 1118 (Old Style).[2] In order to pay for the new building, Abbot Martin de Bec created a new market area to the west of the monastic precincts and monks created new commercial streets around the outside. The street plan they formed is effectively the same as the city centre that exists today.

Medieval Period

In 1154 King Henry II visited Peterborough Abbey with his Chancellor, Thomas Becket. Later, in 1177, Peterborough constructed the Becket Chapel, to house relics of the Saint that had been brought to Peterborough by Abbot Benedict, former Prior of Canterbury Cathedral, specifically the Becket Casket.

In 1216, King John stayed at the monastery, using it as a base of operations to attack his enemies in the region. He may have left a draft copy of the Magna Carta here, hence the inclusion of one in one of the monastery’s cartularies, known today as ‘the Black Book of Peterborough’.

In 1238 the new monastic church is consecrated.

The abbey has many royal visitors over this period including King Edward I in 1302, King Edward II in 1314, King Edward III (who visited annually between 1332-1336), Edward the Black Prince for the summer of 1337 and King Henry VI in 1452. There were also two significant births, that of Blanche and Philippa, daughters of the future King Henry IV. Phillipa grew up to become Queen of Denmark.

Tudor period

The tomb of 'Katherine Queen of England'.

In 1536 Katherine of Aragon, Henry VIII's first wife, was buried here. Her tomb is now marked with the inscription 'Katherine Queen of England', a title she was denied at the time of her death. Every year a celebration is held to mark the anniversary of her burial and her grave is regularly visited and decorated with flowers and pomegranates (her symbol).

In 1539 the great Abbey of Peterborough was closed and its lands and properties confiscated by King Henry VIII. To increase his control over the church Henry created a new bishop and Peterborough Abbey became a Cathedral. He also founded a grammar school in the precincts, the foundation of the current King's School.

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

In 1594 Robert Scarlett (Old Scarlett) died at the age of 98. He is buried just inside the Cathedral and commemorated with a painting and rhyme above the west doors.

Civil War Period

The high altar

The Cathedral was vandalised during the English Civil War in 1643 by Parliamentarian troops, when Peterborough, a town with Royalist sympathies, was taken by Colonel Oliver Cromwell. As was common at the time, 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 also damaged or destroyed. In 1646, King Charles I was imprisoned for two nights in the precincts on route to Holdenby House in Northamptonshire.

West prospect in the seventeenth century

Much of the stonework from the ruined monastic buildings was quarried away and used for the building of Thorpe Hall, an impressive Cromwellian manor house.

Some of the damage was repaired during the 17th and 18th centuries. In 1883, extensive restoration work began, with the interior pillars, the choir and the west front being completely rebuilt under the supervision of John Loughborough Pearson, and new hand-carved choir stalls, cathedra (bishop's throne), choir pulpit and the marble pavement and high altar being added. A stepped level of battlements was removed from the central tower, reducing its height slightly.

Victorian Period

A girls school was established in Laurel Court in 1870 by the redoubtable Miss Margaret Gibson, and remained open until 1928. Edith Cavell attended the school as a pupil-teacher in 1885. Also in 1885 The Kings School moved from the precincts to its current location on Park Road.

In 1895, the tomb of Katherine of Aragon was restored after an appeal led by Katherine Clayton.

Present Day

In 1975, Peterborough Cathedral once again received royalty when Queen Elizabeth II gave Maundy Money.

In the early evening of 22 November 2001 the Cathedral was hit by a fire thought to have been started deliberately amongst plastic chairs stored in the North Choir Aisle.[8] Fortunately the fire was spotted by one of the vergers allowing a swift response by emergency services.[9] The timing was particularly unfortunate as a complete restoration of the painted wooden ceiling was nearing completion.[10] The oily smoke given off by the plastic chairs was particularly damaging, coating much of the building with a sticky black layer. The seat of the fire was close to the organ and the combination of direct damage from the fire, and the water used to extinguish necessitated a full-scale rebuild of the instrument, putting it out of action for several years.

An extensive programme of repairs to the west front began in July 2006 and has cost in excess of half a million pounds. This work is concentrated around the statues located in niches which have been so badly affected by years of pollution and weathering that, in some cases, they have only stayed intact thanks to iron bars inserted through them from the head to the body. The programme of work has sought donors to "adopt a stone".[11]

The sculptor Alan Durst was responsible for some of the work on the statues on the West Front.[12]

Architecture

Norman and medieval architecture

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.[13] It has been over-painted twice, once in 1745, then in 1834, but still retains the character and style of the original. (The painted nave ceiling of Ely Cathedral, by contrast, is entirely a Victorian creation.)

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 (e.g. 4,000 each year for Ramsey).[14] Cathedral historians believe that part of the placing of the church in the location it is in is due to the easy ability to transfer quarried stones by river and then to the existing site allowing it to grow without being relocated.

Then, after 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 choir
The New Building

The trio of arches forming the Great West Front, the defining image of Peterborough Cathedral, is unrivalled in medieval architecture. The line of spires behind it, topping an unprecedented four towers, evolved for more practical reasons. Chief amongst them was the wish to retain the earlier Norman towers, which became obsolete when the Gothic front was added. Instead of being demolished and replaced with new stretches of wall, these old towers were retained and embellished with cornices and other gothic decor, while two new towers were added to create a continuous frontage.

The Norman tower was rebuilt in the Decorated Gothic style in about 1350–1380 (its main beams and roof bosses survive) with two tiers of Romanesque windows combined into a single set of Gothic windows, with the turreted cap and pinnacles removed and replaced by battlements. 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.

Misericords

It is believed that Peterborough Cathedral originally had a set of over thirty misericords dating from the fourteenth century. However, only three now survive.[15]

Dean and chapter

Burials

Grave of Catherine of Aragon

Reliquary at Peterborough

A number of saints were interred in the altar at Peterborough[18] Wilfrid, Tatberht, Sicgrid nicknamed Pius Pater, Botwine reverndus sacerdos,[18] Albert praeclarus minister, Wulfgar and Wildegel modestus.

Gallery

Cathedral music

Organ

Details of the organ from the National Pipe Organ Register

Organists

The records of organists at Peterborough Cathedral list Richard Storey as organist in 1540. Notable organists of Peterborough Cathedral have included Stanley Vann, Sir Malcolm Sargent and Thomas Armstrong.

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Peterborough". Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 2009. Retrieved 5 March 2009.
  2. 1 2 3 Sweeting, W.D (5 October 2004) [1898]. "Chapter 1. History of the Cathedral Church of St Peter". In Bell, E. The Cathedral Church of Peterborough: A Description of its Fabric and a Brief History of the Episcopal See. Bell's Cathedrals (Project Gutenberg transcription of the 1926 reprint of the 2nd ed.). London: G. Bell and Sons. Retrieved 23 April 2007.
  3. ↑ http://cambridgemilitaryhistory.com/2014/11/30/the-hedda-stone-and-peterborough-abbey/ The Hedda Stone and Peterborough Cathedral at the Cambridge Military History Website
  4. ↑ Biddick, Kathleen (1989). "1 – Consumption and Pastoral Resources on the Early Medieval Estate". The Other Economy: Pastoral Husbandry on a Medieval Estate. University of California Press. p. 13. ISBN 0-520-06388-0. Retrieved 25 April 2007. He restored Peterborough Abbey to its former royal splendor and dedicated "a basilica there furbished with suitable structures of halls, and enriched with surrounding lands."
  5. ↑ The most recent survey of the Anglo-Saxon history of Peterborough Abbey is in Kelly, S.E. (ed.), Charters of Peterborough Abbey, Anglo-Saxon Charters 14, OUP, 2009.
  6. ↑ Anglo-Saxon graves found at Peterborough Cathedral. Medievalists.net. Retrieved on 15 May 2008. Archived 1 October 2011 at the Wayback Machine.
  7. ↑ Brooke, Rosalind; Brooke, Christopher (1984). "Chapter 2". Popular Religion in the Middle Ages; Western Europe 1000–1300. Thames and Hudson. pp. 19–21. ISBN 0-500-25087-1.
  8. ↑ "CATHEDRAL FIRE: Candle theory on cathedral arson". Peterborough Evening Telegraph. Johnston Press Digital Publishing. 27 November 2006. Archived from the original (Newspaper) on 30 September 2007. Retrieved 23 January 2007.
  9. ↑ "FIRE: 'I watched the beautiful building go up in smoke'". Peterborough Evening Telegraph. Johnston Press Digital Publishing. 23 November 2006. Archived from the original on 30 September 2007. Retrieved 23 January 2007.
  10. ↑ "FIRE: Devestating blow to appeal work (sic)". Peterborough Evening Telegraph. Johnston Press Digital Publishing. 23 November 2006. Archived from the original on 28 September 2007. Retrieved 23 January 2007.
  11. ↑ Adopt a Stone a gift to last a life time. Peterborough Cathedral 2013 (accessioned 20131229)
  12. ↑ Alan Durst, Mention of work on West Front.
  13. ↑ 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.
  14. ↑ Beeke, Clive (2006). "Abbots of Ramsey". Ramsey Abbey website. Clive Beeke. Retrieved 23 January 2007. Edward [the Confessor] also became a party to an agreement between the Abbot of Ramsey and Abbot of Burgh (Peterborough) in regard to the exchange of lands; to bounds and limits of King's-delf; also the right to Ramsey Abbey to dig stone both 'squared and broken' at the quarries of Barnack. For this privilege the Abbey had to give the Monks of Peterborough 'four thousand eels yearly in Lent'
  15. ↑ http://www.misericords.co.uk/peterborough.html
  16. 1 2 Cathedral Development and Preservation Trust – Accounts to 5 April 2005
  17. ↑ Peterborough Telegraph – Video: New vicar starts
  18. 1 2 Nicholas Brooks, Catherine Cubitt, St. Oswald of Worcester (Continuum, 1 Jan 1996) page 255

Further reading

External links

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