As many readers may know, the three-acre site at the bottom of Cowgate which is now the city’s busiest roundabout was, in Victorian and Georgian times, a burial ground.
Known as the Parish Burial Ground, it was first used in 1805 when the lay-persons cemetery on the north side of the Cathedral became overcrowded.
Like many other cemeteries during the 1800s, the graveyard was targeted by grave-robbers, who found selling on dead corpses to medical schools a financially lucrative pursuit.
While the Parish Burial Ground stopped accepting new burials in the late 1850s, it remained open for the public to tend graves.
The site became less relevant in subsequent years until in the 1970s, all visible memories of it disappeared from public view forever when the new Queensgate development reimagined the area for good.
Luckily for us, our good friends at Peterborough Images Archive still retain a number of evocative images which enable us to see just what the burial ground looked like in centuries past.
5. What Peterborough's old Parish Burial Ground used to look like
By the late 1970s, all visible signs of the burial ground had been removed to accommodate the new Queensgate Shopping Centre development. Photo: Peterborough Images Archive
6. What Peterborough's old Parish Burial Ground used to look like
This superimposed map data from 1892-1914 shows the exact extent of where the burial ground used to be. Photo: National Library of Scotland
7. What Peterborough's old Parish Burial Ground used to look like
While the burial ground itself is long gone, a blue plaque at the end of Cowgate marks the spot where the cemetery once stood. Photo: UGC