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A/Owning, a new public art commission from Metal led by José García Oliva, will transform the awnings of locally owned Peterborough businesses into temporary stages for poetry, performance and gathering from October 2026.
From shattered medieval fragments to Rossetti, William Morris and the great Victorian studios, Peterborough Cathedral’s stained glass tells a remarkable story of destruction, revival, remembrance and extraordinary craftsmanship.
Derek Lopez spent decades promoting Norman Cross, the world’s first purpose-built prisoner-of-war camp. Through his art gallery, heritage events, the Friends of Norman Cross and persistent campaigning, he helped secure an extraordinary Peterborough story for future generations.
Mary, Queen of Scots returns to the Cathedral that first held her grave. From 21 September to 15 November 2026, Peterborough Cathedral hosts a major exhibition exploring her extraordinary life through original artefacts, reproductions, immersive scenes and one uniquely powerful setting.
Haydn Keeton served as organist and choirmaster of Peterborough Cathedral for more than 50 years. Composer, conductor and influential teacher, he trained musicians including Malcolm Sargent and Sir Thomas Armstrong and helped shape Peterborough’s remarkable musical heritage.
Charles Swift OBE served Peterborough for an extraordinary 62 years as a councillor. Railwayman, Mayor, council leader and community champion, he helped shape the expanding modern city and played a courageous role in welcoming Ugandan Asian families to Peterborough in 1972.
Peterborough produced three extraordinary musicians whose influence travelled far beyond their fame. Discover how Sir Thomas Armstrong, James Blades OBE and Don Lusher OBE helped shape British music, from the Royal Academy and Benjamin Britten to the BBC, the Rank gong, Ted Heath and Frank Sinatra.
Peterborough-born Jake Jarman is an Olympic bronze medallist, two-time world champion and record-breaking Commonwealth gymnast. Discover his journey from a Peterborough playground to international glory and the creation of a gymnastics skill now known simply as “The Jarman”.
Peterborough-born Lauren Steadman MBE is a Paralympic triathlon champion, multiple world and European champion and five-time Paralympian. Discover her remarkable journey from teenage swimmer to Tokyo gold medallist, television personality and disability advocate.
Born in Peterborough in 1898, Sir Thomas Armstrong rose from the city’s musical traditions to become an organist, conductor, composer and Principal of the Royal Academy of Music. Discover his remarkable journey from Peterborough Cathedral to the heart of British musical life.
Born in Peterborough, Sir John Hill became one of Georgian Britain’s most colourful botanists, producing a monumental study of plants and one of the earliest medical warnings linking tobacco with cancer.
Born in Peterborough and baptised at its Cathedral, William Paley became one of Georgian Britain’s most influential philosophers and theologians, famous for the watchmaker argument that later helped shape the thinking of Charles Darwin.
Born in Peterborough and taught trombone through the Salvation Army, Don Lusher became one of Britain’s greatest big-band musicians, playing with Ted Heath, Frank Sinatra and generations of jazz legends.
Born in Peterborough, Ed Stafford became the first person to walk the entire length of the Amazon River, completing an extraordinary 860-day journey before building an international career as an explorer and television presenter.
Each January, just six miles east of Peterborough, a person disappears beneath a suit of straw and becomes the Whittlesea Straw Bear. Rooted in Fenland Plough Monday traditions, lost in the early 20th century and revived in 1980, the Bear survives because each generation chooses to make it again.
Peterborough-born Fatima Manji is an award-winning journalist, broadcaster and author who rose from Jack Hunt School and regional BBC journalism to Channel 4 News, becoming Britain’s first hijab-wearing national television newsreader.
Carved from cowbone by an unidentified prisoner at Norman Cross, this extraordinary working model of a guillotine combines miniature engineering, intricate craftsmanship and the remarkable prison economy that developed just outside Peterborough during the Napoleonic Wars.
Discover Voice of the City, Peterborough’s Henry Penn bell sculpture on Lower Bridge Street, celebrating the city’s remarkable 18th-century bellfounding heritage.
Found beside Ermine Street at Durobrivae in 1913, this Roman milestone bears the name of Victorinus, ruler of the breakaway Gallic Empire that controlled Britain during the turbulent third century.
The earliest recorded “sh” form that became the modern word “she” appears in the Peterborough Chronicle. From Katharine of Aragon and Lily Violet Bryant to Marjorie Pollard, Daphne Jackson, Debbie Sellin and Shabina Qayyum, discover the women connected with Peterborough who broke barriers and opened doors.
Seaxwulf was the founding abbot of Medeshamstede, the seventh-century monastery from which Peterborough Abbey, Peterborough Cathedral and ultimately the city itself developed.
After fire destroyed Peterborough Abbey in 1116, Abbot John de Sais began the monumental Norman church that became Peterborough Cathedral. Discover the man behind one of the city’s greatest buildings.
Mandell Creighton was a pioneering Victorian historian and Bishop of Peterborough from 1891 to 1897. Discover the scholar, churchman and peacemaker who helped shape modern historical study.
Lily Violet Bryant became Peterborough’s first woman councillor in 1930 and its first woman mayor in 1938, leading the city as Britain prepared for the Second World War.