As Heritage Regeneration Officer for Peterborough, I’m responsible for ensuring that heritage plays its full role in the growth, development and perceptions of the city. Although heritage by its very nature, is a product from our past it’s important that it’s valued as part of Peterborough’s regeneration now and in the future. It’s not an either/or situation or a compromise, but a situation in which there are a lot of benefits in combining and enhancing the economic development of the city with the existing heritage assets.
The character of Peterborough is unique because of its history. The heritage of a city is a unique selling point for visitors and local people, helping to create a sense of pride and ownership. In order to create a vibrant forward thinking city, we need to harness our heritage assets, from street patterns to architectural features, and realise their potential to provide a central pivot for growth. Peterborough is a new town with an old centre and to ignore its heritage is to dismiss those who walked on these streets before us.
Peterborough has a wide range of heritage assets, with over 1000 listed buildings, 29 Conservation Areas and nearly 60 Scheduled Ancient Monuments, alongside reams of underground archaeology. It’s a microcosm of the UK’s heritage from cultural to built, comprising large stately homes and halls, evidence of medieval land boundaries, archaeology sites, bronze age settlements, Napoleonic prisoner of war camps, and railways. These assets are a hugely valuable resource in terms of the economic, educational, leisure and health benefits they provide to the local communities in Peterborough, and to visitors to the city.
Religious buildings representing the rich cultural heritage of Peterborough dominate the skylines of most of the city core. The Cathedral provides a central feature of the skyline within the City Centre Conservation Area. To the North of the city a more recent addition is the striking green dome of the Faizan E Madina Mosque; its minaret can be glimpsed throughout the Gladstone, Millfield and New England areas. The rich variety of meeting houses, churches and other places of worship highlight the diversity of the population. Peterborough has always been a place of immigration, from the Romans, Vikings and Bronze Age settlers whose remains can be seen at Flag Fen to those who came for the Railways and Brickworks in the Victorian period, who have left their mark in the housing protected by the New England Conservation Area, the city has always been shaped by its people.
The new works in Cathedral Square have thrown our city centre heritage such as the Guildhall, St John’s and the Cathedral into a new focus, but heritage doesn’t stop there, we have a Grade II* listed pub on the square, and some fascinating quirky detailing on some of the buildings which surround it, including some of the only remaining timber framed buildings in the city centre (now Ladbrokes). Heritage is not static. It is used and adapted to meet new needs and if we maintain it, it will continue to be used and valued long into the future.
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