Attraction in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough

Peterborough Cathedral is one of the finest Norman cathedral churches in England, a building of exceptional scale and architectural quality whose west front, completed in the early thirteenth century, is arguably the most distinctive and most dramatic cathedral facade in Britain. The three enormous arches of the west front, each over twenty metres high, create a composition of breathtaking boldness that is entirely unique in European medieval architecture, their scale and the depth of the carved decoration making the Peterborough west front one of the most immediately impressive sights in English church architecture. The cathedral was founded as a Benedictine abbey in 655 by the Mercian King Peada and subsequently refounded after Viking destruction, reaching its architectural flowering between approximately 1118 and 1200 in the Norman building campaign that created the nave, transepts and choir. The Norman nave is one of the finest in England, its painted timber ceiling of approximately 1220 one of the rare surviving examples of medieval nave ceiling painting, the diamond and lozenge patterns in red, blue and gold creating a complete medieval interior experience of great richness. The cathedral has a remarkable royal connection through its role as the burial place of two queens. Catherine of Aragon, the first wife of Henry VIII, was buried in the cathedral in 1536 following her death at Kimbolton Castle, and a banner of the Spanish royal family marks her tomb in the north aisle. Mary Queen of Scots was buried here in 1587 following her execution at Fotheringhay, before her body was reinterred in Westminster Abbey by her son James I. The presence of both queens whose lives were so consequentially connected to Henry VIII gives Peterborough Cathedral a remarkable historical resonance.

Flag Fen near Peterborough in Cambridgeshire is one of the most significant Bronze Age archaeological sites in Britain, a preserved wooden platform and post alignment dating from approximately 1300 to 900 BC that was discovered in 1982 and has been excavated and interpreted by archaeologist Francis Pryor in one of the most sustained and most publicly engaged excavation projects of the late twentieth century. The preserved wooden timbers of the Bronze Age structure survive beneath the fen peat in exceptional condition, and the site provides one of the most direct encounters with the Bronze Age world available in England. The Bronze Age post alignment at Flag Fen extends for approximately one kilometre across the ancient fenland from Northey Island to the Peterborough shore, a structure of approximately 60,000 individual timber posts that represented an enormous investment of labour and resources by the farming communities of the Bronze Age fens. The function of the alignment is uncertain but the large number of metal objects, weapons and personal ornaments deliberately deposited in the water beside the alignment suggests a ritual or votive dimension to the structure, perhaps marking a boundary between the world of the living on the dry land and the watery world of the spirits in the fen. The on-site museum and the active preservation work visible at the site provide the most direct public engagement with the Bronze Age environment of any comparable site in Britain, and the circular Iron Age roundhouse reconstructed at Flag Fen provides an excellent illustration of the domestic architecture of the period.

Ely Cathedral rises above the flat fenland landscape of Cambridgeshire with the commanding presence of a great ship on a calm sea, its massive Norman nave and the extraordinary fourteenth-century Octagon and lantern tower visible across the fens from remarkable distances. The image of the cathedral floating above the surrounding plain has given rise to the affectionate epithet Ship of the Fens, and the building's exceptional visibility and its architectural achievements combine to make it one of the most important and most rewarding cathedrals in England. The Norman nave, begun in 1083 under Bishop Simeon, is one of the finest and most complete in England, its length of over 75 metres and the powerful Romanesque arches of its three storeys creating a building of great solemnity and architectural authority. The development of the eastern end in the Early English Gothic style added the elegant retrochoir and presbytery, while the Decorated Gothic Lady Chapel of 1321 to 1349 represents the most elaborate expression of that style in any English cathedral, its wall arcades carved with scenes from the life of the Virgin in a programme of sculptural decoration of exceptional ambition. The Octagon and lantern tower, designed by Alan of Walsingham to replace the Norman crossing tower that collapsed in 1322, are the supreme architectural achievement at Ely. Rather than simply rebuild the tower in conventional form, Alan created an octagonal space of stone covered by a timber-framed octagonal lantern supported on eight enormous oak posts, combining the structural ingenuity of Gothic vaulting with a central lantern that floods the crossing with natural light from eight windows. The engineering solution was entirely original, has never been precisely replicated and remains one of the great individual achievements of medieval architecture.

Burghley House near Stamford in Lincolnshire is one of the grandest and most complete Elizabethan country houses in England, a great mansion built between 1555 and 1587 by William Cecil, the first Lord Burghley and the most powerful minister of Elizabeth I's reign, whose combination of the extraordinary architecture, the outstanding art collection and the Capability Brown park landscape creates one of the most complete and most rewarding English country house experiences available. The house is the ancestral home of the Cecil family, Marquesses of Exeter, and continues in family occupation. The exterior of Burghley House is one of the most spectacular architectural compositions of the Elizabethan age, the great south front with its symmetrical towers, the decorated chimneys disguised as columns and obelisks and the ornate roofline creating a display of architectural ambition that sought to express in stone the power and sophistication of its builder. The combination of Gothic and classical elements in the facade reflects the transitional nature of Elizabethan architecture, which was absorbing the influence of the Italian Renaissance while remaining rooted in the English medieval tradition. The interior contains one of the finest collections of Italian Old Master paintings assembled in any English country house, including works by Veronese, Tintoretto and other sixteenth-century Venetian and Italian masters. The Heaven Room and Hell Staircase, painted by Antonio Verrio in the 1690s in a programme of baroque ceiling painting of considerable ambition, are the most celebrated interior spaces. The park was landscaped by Capability Brown in the 1750s and hosts the annual Burghley Horse Trials.