Peterborough Cathedral II: The Minster Precinct

     I have a vague recollection of my first visit to the Minster Precinct - the name at Peterborough for the close.  I was with my mother and my aunt, and I was very young though walking.  I think that we must have driven to Peterborough in my aunt's car, because we had walked from the car park in Bishop's Rd., the one, I think, that stands on the site of the Derby Yard.  That first visit became something I wanted to repeat on subsequent trips to the city. A bit of a treat. It may have been there that I cemented my love of architecture, that and the many family holidays in Scotland.  Perhaps afterwards I was taken to Woodcocks* on Bridge St. for tea. 
     It shouldn't be a surprise, then, that the Precinct is a favourite of mine.  There is something so eminently civilised about the place, and it is still after all those intervening years a real pleasure to walk through, even though it appears that many of the houses are now rented out as offices and there are too many cars parked about. But a refuge still from the surrounding city. 

     Historically the Precinct was much larger, running s to the river Nene, while to the north there was a deer park.  You could think of the whole complex as a model of the Heavenly Jerusalem.

 

     Anyway the Precinct comprises a number of distinct areas. To the west of the cathedral is a large open space, originally the great court of the Abbey.  Now called the 'Galilee Court', it appears to have been called 'The Close' or 'The Minster Close' until at least the end of the 19th century.  Buildings line the s and w sides. The west side contains, amongst other buildings, The Outer Gate that leads to the city centre, the former chapel of St Thomas a Beckett, and a fine terrace of brick houses built by the Earl Fitzwilliam in 1726.  The long range of buildings on the s, partly Medieval and partly 19th century, contains the proud, Medieval Bishop's Gate that leads naturally enough to the Bishop's Palace.  Both gate and palace were originally built to serve the Medieval abbots. The north side is mainly occupied by the stout garden wall of The Deanery.  Alas as a piece of urbanism the Minster Close doesn't quite work; the city intrudes a little and there isn't enough sense of enclosure and the space just bleeds away in places.  In the 18th century the effect was perhaps quite different for the western part of the great lawn was planted as an orchard.

       North and east of the cathedral is an extensive churchyard: the Lay Folks, and Monks Cemeteries. Beyond that is a ring of large secluded houses for the cathedral clergy.

       Finally to the south, and my favourite part, are the remains of the monastic buildings with all sorts Post Reformation houses built in and around them.  The cloisters were destroyed in the Civil War by those in pursuit of the Second Coming, leaving only the w and s walls standing; the entire e range including chapter house has gone and a later house occupies the site. However the space, sometimes referred to as 'Laurel Court', remains, and it this amalgam, this bricolage, of architectural styles and periods, narrow lanes and enclosed public spaces that is so deeply satisfying. I am reminded of those beautiful topographical watercolours, by the likes of Cotman and Turner of Medieval buildings as they were around 1800, before they were restored by those searching for architectural purity.  

     And that m'dears is yer lot for now on Peterborough as in Laurel Court my phone died and you'll have to wait until my summer trip to London for pictures of the cathedral interior.

* Woodcooks was a proper sort of place, with a shop on the ground floor selling baked goods & confectionery, and a wood-panelled cafe upstairs with starched white linen tablecloths on the tables.  It was, as far as I managed to discover, one of two branches in Peterborough.  There were other branches in Oakham, Uppingham and Stamford, and much further east in King's Lynn.  The Bridge St building was itself a bit of a confection being, to judge from photographs, a Victorian version of 'Merrie England' with half-timbering, oriel windows, and steep gables.  I don't know when it closed exactly - late 60s/early 70s?  The building was subsequently demolished and some wretchedly utilitarian structure put up in its place. For shame.