Peterborough and Cambridge

Day 6 Peterborough Cathedral & Cambridge
Up early today for a short drive to Peterborough Cathedral for a group tour to see the last resting place of Catherine of Aragon. The Cathedral is one of the most magnificent buildings in England, there has been a church on this site since the year 649. It has a fantastic painted roof in the knave and has huge columns supporting the roof.

Catherine of Aragon rests under a simple slab and in the 19th century all women called Catherine were asked to make a small donation to fund a suitable memorial to a much loved queen of England. We all placed a sprig of rosemary we took from the knot garden at Buckden Towers on the black marble slab, where there were also a few pomegranates laid in memory of her . We had a memorable tour of the cathedral with our guide for the morning who gave us a great deal more information and stories on the founding and characters of this great church.

On to Cambridge where we visited Kings College chapel in my view the Greatest of Henry VIII’s building legacies. There is a guide book just for the great stained glass windows alone. The building just has to be the most fantastic I have visited and it has many unique features, the first being the largest fan vaulted roof and in the side exhibition there is a model of how it is constructed. Evidence of two of Henry’s wives are to be found here, Anne Boleyn’s initials are carved on the provost stall now why were they left here when all evidence of her has just about completely removed. High up in the east window we can see Katherine’s initials above the red dragon of Wales.

Also to be found carved on the quire stalls are some Tudor roses the 5 petal distinctive rose we find anywhere. However as I found out on a couple of weeks ago at Tong church (see an earlier blog) sitting there amid all this fine carving sits a Tudor rose not with the five petals but with a smiley face, I kid you not, even the curator was unaware that it existed.

On to London, pausing for a few minutes and chasing around Kings Cross station we eventually found platform 9 and ¾ and we all took posed photos. We’re staying for the next two nights at the Mad Hatters Hotel right near the Thames at Blackfriars Bridge. It used to be a hat factory and it’s has location only a few minutes walk from the Globe Theatre. We had Fish and chips at the George Inn the oldest galleried pub in London where Shakespeare played before he built the Globe theatre.

We had a gentle stroll to the pub and back again taking in some of the landmarks that Charles Dickens would have known as a child, including Nancy’s steps, the only bit of wall left from the Marshallsea prison and Southwark Cathedral.

www.tudorhistorytours.com