Peterborough is a famous cathedral city in Cambridgeshire, England, with a total population of 183,631 according to 2011 census. In history it was part of Northamptonshire, it is 75 miles (nearly 121 km) north of London, on the River Nene which streams into the North Sea 30 miles (approx 48 km) to the north-east. The railway station is a vital stop on the East Coast Main Line between London and Edinburgh.
History
Etymology
The name of the town had changed to Burgh in the late tenth century, probably after Abbot Kenulf had constructed a defensive wall near to the abbey, and eventually established into the form Peterborough; this town does not appear to have been a borough until the 12th century. The different form of Gildenburgh is also found in the 12th-century history of the abbey, the Peterborough’s version of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle and an abbey’s history by the monk Hugh Candidus.
Early history
Presently Peterborough is the latest in a series of settlements which have at one time or other benefited from its place where the Nene leaves vast areas of permanently drained land for the fens. Leftovers of Bronze Age settlement and what is thought to be spiritual activity can be easily seen at the Flag Fen historical site to the east of the city centre. The fortified garrison town at Durobrivae on Ermine Street set up by Romans, five miles to the west in Water Newton, in the middle of the 1st century AD.
Modern history
Railway lines began functioning locally in the 1840s, but it was 1850 when the inaugural of the Great Northern Railway's line is starting from London to York that changed Peterborough from a market town to an industrial centre. Lord Exeter was against the railway passing through Stamford, so Peterborough, located between two main terminals at London and Doncaster, progressively developed as a regional hub.
