Choose from a range of themed tours, from Medieval Peterborough to Women of Peterborough.
Do you know which Hollywood star once called Peterborough home? Where did the Medieval Royalty stay when they visited Peterborough?
Peterborough has many historic buildings, but how have they changed?
Explore the city centre with our guide to look at how the our best loved buildings have changed and developed over the years. Discover some of the businesses, people and stories connected with these places, and learn about the buildings which are no longer there.
An essential tour for local people and those curious about our city and how it has changed!
The Abbots of Peterborough Abbey created a ‘new town’ in Medieval times. Take a tour of the town they created with our costumed guide and discover what Peterborough was like in the Middle Ages.
Discover more about life in the Abbey and find out how hard it would have been to have lived as a monk. Find out why our parish church was built in a hole, whose blood and whose arm was kept at the Abbey, what people did before there was a bridge in the city and where medieval royalty stayed when they visited Peterborough. You might even see what’s left of Peterborough’s castle!
Like many old towns and cities, Peterborough has its share of monuments around the city centre – from commemorative plaques to whole buildings built in memory of a particular person or event.
Take a walk around the city centre with our guide and discover the fascinating stories behind many of these monuments and buildings. Find out who the Gates Memorial was built to celebrate – and why it has been moved around. Learn why Lord Nelson overlooks Cowgate and how the bells of St John’s Church saved the life of Matthew Wyldbore, MP for Peterborough. Whose coats of arms are on the front of the Guildhall and why are they there? And what do they have to do with a turtle? An unusual way to find out more about Peterborough’s past!
Discover the fascinating, dramatic and often gory stories from one of the best known and most turbulent periods in our history – the time of the Tudors and the Stuarts.
Accompany our costumed guide around the streets to discover the often hidden buildings that still survive from this period, and learn more about the families that lived in them 350 years ago. Hear the stories of the Queens buried in the Cathedral: Katherine of Aragon, first of Henry VIII’s six wives, and Mary Queen of Scots, beheaded at nearby Fotheringhay Castle in 1587.
Discover what happened when Henry VIII closed the abbey down – and how the last Abbot became the first Bishop of Peterborough. Find out about what happened when the Civil War came to Peterborough in the shape of Oliver Cromwell, then grimace at the ghastly story of the plague in Peterborough, which killed a third of the town’s people.
Take a tour with our ARP warden round the streets of the city centre and discover more about Peterborough during the two world wars.
Find out about the servicemen from the area and the units they fought in – including a regiment in World War I, armed with bicycles. Hear about the industries in Peterborough during World War II and what they made. Discover the chilling role Peterborough was to have played had the Germans invaded… and which top Nazi had his eye on Burghley House to become his new home… Learn what happened when Peterborough was bombed, where American and Polish servicemen were stationed in the city and which Hollywood film star used to drink in the local pubs .A fascinating trip into our more recent past for those who are interested in our wartime history – or for those who lived through it.
Why are so many streets in Peterborough called gates? Cumbergate, Cobden Street, Wheelyard – where did they get their names?
Why is Peterborough even called Peterborough? Our guide will take you through city streets, exploring the origins of the names and giving a fascinating insight into the history of Peterborough through our streets and their changing uses over the centuries. You’ll also discover the story of those streets that no longer exist, and the people and trades that have given their names to the city today.
A queen, a war heroine, a nurse, a butter seller, a Saxon princess, a woman who tried to introduce inoculation long before anyone else … rich and poor, eccentric and humble, find out about the women who touched the life of this city with this fascinating walk.
Discover the story of Lady Mary Wortley Montague, who brought a method of inoculating people against the killer disease smallpox back from her remarkable travels in Turkey. Find out the truth behind the propaganda in the story of Edith Cavell, a nurse who was shot for helping British soldiers escape from behind enemy lines during World War I. These and many more remarkable stories will be told on this walk.