1941: On this day, 814 20-year-old city girls responded to their call-up papers - although some forgot their registration card! Many of the girls had come with their mothers, while others had their boyfriends for company. Some are described as arriving 'with an army escort on either side'. Quite a few perambulators are also recorded as being parked outside the building. (Gray, David, Peterborough at War 1939-1945, David Gray, 2011)
Taken from The Peterborough Book of Days by Brian Jones, The History Press, 2014.
The Anglo Saxon chronicle, much of which was written at Peterborough Abbey, claims that a Viking army attacked Peterborough in 870AD. Some historians have disputed this, but the abbey was very wealthy and would have been a prime target for the ‘great heathen army’ of Danes that invaded the East Anglia that year.
For a century afterwards this area was part of the Danelaw and traces of Viking occupation can be seen in local place and street names. Norman Cross, to the south of Peterborough, most likely comes from ‘Northman’s Cross’, a Viking meeting point off the Great North Road. Many streets in Peterborough are ‘gates’ such as Priestgate and Cowgate, from the Danish word for street, “gaeta”.
A Danish army attacked Peterborough in 1070, acting as mercenaries for a Saxon called Hereward the Wake (also known as 'the Exile') born in Bourne, Lincolnshire, who led a resistance movement against the Normans. He persuaded King Sven of Denmark to help him attack Peterborough, perhaps because he wanted to stop the Normans from getting their hands on the abbey’s treasures. Others said he was just a thief! After the raid the Danes betrayed Hereward and took all the looted gold for themselves.
References:
Peterborough Museum Exhibition
The Children of Ash and Elm by Neil Price, Allen Lane, 2020
Vikings life and legend Edited by Williams, Gareth, Pentz, Peter, Wemhoff, Matthias. The British Museum Press, 2014
Image:
Viking Ship Lofotr licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.
Hedda Stone from Peterborough Cathedral