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Peterborough is a city with a cathedral dedicated to St. Peter, St. Paul and St. Andrew (commonly known as St. Peter's Cathedral). It is now a unitary authority area in Cambridgeshire, England. It had a population of 183,600 at the UK census of 2011 and a locally estmated population of 202,110 in 2017. It is also the largest city in the East Anglia area of England. It is 76 miles (122 km) north of London, on the River Nene which flows into the North Sea 30 miles (48 km) to the northeast. The railway station is an important stop on the East Coast Main Line between London and Edinburgh. The local topography is flat, and in parts of the Fens to the east of Peterborough the land lies below sea level. Human settlement in the area began before the Bronze Age, as can be seen at the Flag Fen archaeological site to the east of the current city centre, which also has evidence of Roman occupation. The Anglo-Saxon period saw the establishment of a monastery, Medeshamstede, which later became Peterborough Cathedral. The population grew rapidly after the railways arrived in the 19th century, and Peterborough became an industrial centre, particularly known for its brick manufacture. After the Second World War, growth was limited until the city was designated as a New Town in the 1960s. [edit] Local governmentPeterborough was historically part of the county of Northamptonshire. From 1889, the ancient Soke of Peterborough formed an administrative county in its own right with boundaries similar, although not identical, to the current unitary authority. The area however remained geographically part of Northamptonshire until 1965, when the Soke was merged with the county of Huntingdonshire (located to the southeast) to form the county of Huntingdon and Peterborough. Following a review of local government in 1974, Huntingdon and Peterborough was abolished and the current district was created by the merger of the Municipal Borough of Peterborough with which had each existed since 1894 (although under a variety of county administrations). All this area became part of the non-metropolitan county of Cambridgeshire. Letters patent were granted to extend the status of city to the enlarged area. In 1998, the city became a unitary authority autonomous of Cambridgeshire county council, but it continues to form part of that county for ceremonial purposes. [edit] History[edit] Early historyFor more information, see the EN Wikipedia article Peterborough#Early history. for the time before the Dissolution of the Monasteries (1530s) Peterborough suffered materially in the war between King John and the confederate barons, many of whom took refuge in the monastery here and in Crowland Abbey, from which sanctuaries they were forced by the king's soldiers, who plundered the religious houses and carried off great treasures. In 1541 the abbey church became one of Henry VIII's retained, more secular, cathedrals, having been assessed in the King's Books at the Dissolution as having revenue of £1,972.7s.0¾d per annum. Catherine of Aragon, Henry VIII's first queen, was buried at Peterborough Cathedral. When civil war broke out, Peterborough was divided between supporters of King Charles I and the Long Parliament. The city lay on the border of the Eastern Association of counties which sided with Parliament, and the war reached Peterborough in 1643 when soldiers arrived in the city to attack Royalist strongholds at Stamford and Crowland. The Royalist forces were defeated within a few weeks and retreated to Burghley House, where they were captured and sent to Cambridge. While the Parliamentary soldiers were in Peterborough, however, they ransacked the cathedral, destroying the Lady Chapel, chapter house, cloister, high altar and choir stalls, as well as mediaeval decoration and records. After the Dissolution the dean and chapter of the Cathedral, who succeeded the abbot as lords of the manor, appointed a high bailiff and the constables to administer the city. This ended when, more than 300 years later, the municipal borough was incorporated in 1874 under the government of a mayor, six aldermen and eighteen councillors. [edit] Modern historyRailway lines began operating locally during the 1840s, but it was the 1850 opening of the Great Northern Railway's line from London to York that transformed Peterborough from a market town to an industrial centre. Peterborough, situated between two main terminals at London and Doncaster, increasingly developed as a regional hub. Coupled with vast local clay deposits, the railway enabled large-scale brick-making and distribution to take place. The area was the UK's leading producer of bricks for much of the twentieth century. Brick-making had been a small seasonal craft since the early nineteenth century, but during the 1890s successful experiments at Fletton using the harder clays from a lower level had resulted in a much more efficient process. The market dominance during this period of the London Brick Company, founded by the prolific Scottish builder and architect John Cathles Hill, gave rise to some of the country's most well-known landmarks, all built using the ubiquitous Fletton Brick. Perkins Engines was established in Peterborough in 1932 by Frank Perkins, creator of the Perkins diesel engine. Thirty years later it employed more than a tenth of the population of Peterborough, mainly at Eastfield. Baker Perkins had relocated from London to Westwood, now the site of HM Prison Peterborough, in 1903, followed by Peter Brotherhood to Walton in 1906; both manufacturers of industrial machinery, they too became major employers in the city. British Sugar remains headquartered in Woodston, although the beet sugar factory, which opened there in 1926, was closed in 1991. Later commercial development concerned mergers of large building societies and branches of co-operative societies which operate not only in the food sector, but in banking and undertaking, in many parts of Great Britain.
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