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• The landscape is formed
• Our first people
• Farmers and potters
• Monuments and mysteries
• Pre-history gives way to the Romans
• The Romans make their mark
• Settlers and saints
• A medieval new town
• From abbey to cathedral, from town to city
• Civil war and a return to peace
• Prosperity and puddles
• A tribute to a rural tradition
• The railway age
• A modern city emerges
• A century of changes

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The Romans make their mark

In more peaceful times, settlement flourished.  A town, Durobrivae (meaning 'fortress bridge') grew up on the banks of the Nene - not on the site of the present city of Peterborough, but a few miles upstream. The earthwork remains of the walled part of the town may be traced in a large pasture just off the A1.   Durobrivae probably became a regional capital and market centre. There were significant smaller towns at Casterton near Stamford, Ashton near Oundle, and large villages and an administrative centre near March.

Rich villas and farmsteads were built in the productive countryside around Peterborough.  Many of these sites were occupied in the Iron Age, but were rebuilt according to Roman fashion as the native population adopted a Roman lifestyle.  In later Roman times, the Nene valley became the centre of a major pottery industry. The distinctive white clay pots, which were given a grey or reddish-brown 'slip' (or colour-coat), were traded widely across Britain. They are now known as 'Castor Ware' or 'Nene Valley Ware'. Iron ore was extracted from the limestone deposits surrounding the Nene valley and worked in hearths fuelled by charcoal from local woodland.

The Fens, too, were very well developed in the Roman period, perhaps under direct imperial control. Extensive settlements and field systems were constructed on low islands, and many perched on the exposed banks (or 'roddons') of the old prehistoric rivers. Salt was extracted from tidal rivers which sometimes still ran far inland.  The Car Dyke, a massive ditch or canal of which substantial lengths still survive, was constructed along the fen edge east of Peterborough.

Something of the importance of the Peterborough area to Roman Britain is reflected in the density and richness of the archaeological remains found here.  At Castor during the 1820s, Edmund Tyrell Artis investigated a series of substantial Roman buildings adorned with mosaics and featuring all the trappings of wealthy Roman society.   Fragments of massive Roman walls may still be seen in Stocks Hill and Church Hill at Castor. This extraordinary complex has been interpreted as the palace of a Roman dignitary, as yet unidentified - perhaps an official involved with the administration of the pottery industry, the town of Durobrivae, or the imperial estate in the Fens?