Jeel Scholarship Fund
Building a Better Future
Peterborough Cathedral
We started our foray into East Anglia at Peterborough. Colin, also known as back up and Clare’s better half had said that when we went here, he wanted to come too for the nature reserves and bird watching opportunities. We would be in the caravan and Dorothy and Scout camp in the awning.
This is why Dorothy, and I found us being ejected from the van on the green outside the cathedral in time for communion. Poor Colin had been misdirected by me to a fictitious car park and had to back the van, pulling the caravan round the green past several people who were obviously all going to park legally for the service. Perhaps Colin should have read my earlier blogs about our map reading...
Dorothy and I entered the Cathedral hoping that no one would connect us with an albeit expertly driven van and caravan and that Colin might forgive me!
We arrived in good time for the morning Eucharist without the dogs. Coming from a small village church, cathedral worship is quite splendid involving processing down a large Norman Nave, and the Gospel is read amongst the congregation.
There was no choir but a magnificent organist. As this was the first Sunday after the general election it was mentioned in the sermon that a member of the cabinet had been a chorister there. We later found out that it was David Lammy who this week went to the Middle East to meet with Israeli and Palestinian leaders, asking for a cease fire. The prayers for the sick included the King and the Princess of Wales which I thought was different but very apt.
We had coffee with the Vice Dean Tim who explained that Peterborough was culturally and racially diverse and economically deprived. The Cathedral like others that we had been to is a warm space for people. They have good multifaith relations with the community. We did notice that the congregation was younger and much more diverse than Ripon or Kirby Hill. Dean Tim did say that he would mention Jeel Scholarship fund at a future meeting of the Community Committee.
Peterborough Cathedral has been rebuilt three times and has wonderful Norman arches and a beautiful, vaulted ceiling which looks like lace built in the 12th century.
The Hedda Stone is near the Altar and is thought to be the grave marker for St Hedda who was killed in the same Viking Raids that killed St Edmund of Bury St Edmunds fame. The holes in it were thought to be for small relics. A larger relic, St Oswald’s arm was at Peterborough until the Reformation.
Peterborough was the original burial place for Mary, Queen of Scots but she was moved by her son to Westminster Abbey. However, it does still have the grave of an earlier Queen, Katherine of Aragon or as it says on the stone, Queen of England.
Katherine was famous for her divorce from Henry VIII, the start of the Reformation but I did not realise that she was an advocate for women’s education, influenced new styles of embroidery including the Holbein Stitch and as one can see in the photograph her symbol was a pomegranate.
Now for the serious stuff! There are toilets just outside the South Transept in a Portakabin but “proper loos” including a wheelchair accessible one. There is a shop but no cafe and as we were on the way to a camp site near Ely, we were not looking for one.
We found Colin who had found a great parking spot near the Cathedral on the road and had taken Kit and Scout for a constitutional. Guide Dogs, hearing dogs and assistance dogs are allowed in the cathedral. We bought Colin a coffee and revived him sufficiently to drive on.
