Read more about Humphrey Lyttelton's visits to Peterborough.

Peterborough is fine cathedral city boasting a long and fascinating history.

There is evidence of a Bronze Age settlement at Flag Fen to the east of the city. This Fenland site was discovered in 1982 when a team funded by English Heritage carried out a survey of local dykes.

And when they couldn't help, the team started digging up old flood defences.

Despite the fact that they were mainly marshland, the fens were first inhabited around 35,000 years ago, the earliest settlers having walked from Europe, which was then still attached to England.

Evidence exists of many from France occupying the local bogs, as they were so much nicer than the French ones.

Where is Peterborough?

Although now officially part of Cambridgeshire, Peterborough has at various times been in Rutland, Northamptonshire and Lincolnshire.

One resident aged 98 who has lived in the same cottage all his life has recently been hospitalised with chronic travel sickness.

This part of England is notoriously flat and low-lying, with many areas actually below sea level. This was never a problem until the German raids of 1940, when the town hall was torpedoed by a U-Boat.

The cathedral:

Peterborough's cathedral has its origins in the Saxon abbey built in the 10th Century and dedicated to St Peter.

As it expanded, the abbey and its surroundings were known as a 'burgh', which soon came to be called St Peter's Burgh. Eventually of course that name evolved into the one we know today: Leningrad.

Following the invasion of William the Conqueror, the Peterborough area was the last in England to submit to Norman rule.This was due to rebellions in the Fens led by the resistance fighter, Hereward the Wake, the first man in England to own an alarm clock.

It's officially recorded that Peterborough Town Hall is exactly 75 miles from London's Charing Cross. The cross was commissioned by King Edward I in memory of Eleanor, his queen.

Such was the depth of his grief at the death of his beautiful bride, Edward decreed that a cross be carved ornately in marble from the Dolomites, inlaid with gold and lapis lazuli, and be erected exactly 75 miles from Peterborough Town Hall.

More about Peterborough cathedral on PeterboroughToday.co.uk.

Katherine of Aragon:

Katherine of Aragon came to live near Peterborough after her divorce from Henry VIII. Her settlement included estates at Kimbolton Castle, an annual pension of a thousand gold ducats, a fondue set and half a canteen of cutlery.

She also got Aquitaine, but had to give it back every other weekend.

Burghley House:

Burghley House, built by William Cecil in 1572 at Peterborough Soke, has since 1961 been home to the Burghley Horse Trials.

The absolute pinnacle of equestrian eventing, spectators flock there annually from across the country in the hope of seeing a posh bird fall into a muddy pond.

More about Burghley House on PeterboroughToday.co.uk.