Peterborough Cathedral
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.