Medieval - 1066 - 1500

When William the Conqueror appointed a Norman abbot to Peterborough in 1070, a local Saxon Lord, Hereward the Wake, together with a Danish fleet, attacked the abbey and town. The destruction and its aftermath was so severe that Hugh Candidus a monk writing in the 12th century, tells us "that city which was called the Golden Borough became the poorest of cities".

 

In the 12th Century, however, Peterborough's fortunes changed. Abbot Martin de Bec planned a new town to the west of the abbey gates. The present Cathedral Square (the former Market Place), Long Causeway, and Bridge Street, which ran down to wharves on the Nene, were all part of this medieval plan. At this time the monastic church, our present cathedral, was re-planned on a much larger scale. There were even royal apartments added into the Cathedral gateway, where many monarchs including Richard I and Edward II stayed. A future king, Richard III was born at Fotheringhay Castle just outside Peterborough, in 1452. 

 

Other changes to the town included the construction, in 1307, of the first town bridge across the Nene. During the early 15th century a fine new parish church, dedicated to St John the Baptist, was built at the west end of the Market Place. A medieval merchant built a fine tower house for himself in Longthorpe (right).

 

Peterborough was not always peaceful and was the scene of major riots and bloodshed during the Peasants Revolt of 1381, as well as being sacked by a Lancastrian army in 1461 during the Wars of the Roses.

The countryside prospered in the early Middle Ages, but later a combination of plague, changing economic forces and a breakdown of the old rural feudal system saw many villages shrink or become abandoned entirely. One such place, Botolph Bridge, was noted in the Domesday Book in 1086, but the village gradually declined until finally, in the 1690's, its church was demolished to help repair and enlarge Orton Longueville church. The site of Botolph Bridge village remained open fields for hundreds of years, until recently developed for housing.