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• A century of changes

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A medieval new town

Hugh Candidus summed up Peterborough's fortunes after the Conquest by lamenting 'that city which was called the Golden Borough became the poorest of cities'.   Following the violent events of 1069, the king gave the abbey the exceptionally onerous responsibility of supporting sixty knights.

While theoretically this made the Abbot of Peterborough one of the mightiest Churchmen in the country, it was a considerable strain on the abbey's estates. In the mid 12th century, however, the resourceful Abbot Martin de Bec planned a new settlement to the west of the abbey gates. Earlier settlement had been cramped within the walls of the burh, and outside its walls to the north-east in the Boongate area. The present Cathedral Square (the former Market Place), Long Causeway and Bridge Street, which ran down to wharves (or hithes) on the River Nene, were all elements of the medieval new town.

At this time the monastic church - the present cathedral - was also re-planned on a much larger scale. A great deal of the 12th-century building remains; indeed, the interior of Peterborough Cathedral is one of the best places in Britain to appreciate the splendid architecture of this period. The famous painted ceiling of the nave dates to around 1230. 

Further changes to take place in Peterborough during the later Middle Ages included the construction of the Town Bridge in 1307. This timber bridge, which stood immediately up-stream of the present Town Bridge, was ruined during the following winter but quickly rebuilt. During the early 15th century, a new parish church, dedicated to St John the Baptist, was built at the west end of the Market Place, replacing one that had served the old settlement around Boongate.   It is said that excavation and removal of the tainted ground around the medieval butchers' stalls in the Market Place created the hole in which the church now stands.

The outlying villages were surrounded by the medieval 'open' field systems, common throughout England. The distinctive traces of medieval 'ridge and furrow' agriculture have all but disappeared across the area, but survive in small pockets here and there.  The land was managed from the abbey's granges (or principal farms), such as those at Eyebury, Oxney, Northolm, Singlesole and Tanholt, near Eye, and from manors.  Fortified manors were built at Maxey, Helpston, Northborough and at Woodcroft Castle (also near Helpston). Substantial parts of the latter two remain, and the sites of the former may be traced in earthwork remains.