Perhaps the most interesting feature of the interior is the twelfth-century wooden vaulting of the nave. There is no Lady Chapel at the east end as is usually the case. When the ritual demanded a retro-choir for processions, the Norman apse fortunately was not pulled down, but the new building, Tudor in style, and with a beautiful stone-vaulted roof, was built round it. After Ely's Tower fell, the Norman central tower of Peterborough was pulled down as if a similar fate was feared for it, and a shorter tower was erected in its place. Two queens have been buried in the church, namely, Catherine of Arragon and Mary Queen of Scots. The remains of both queens have been removed to Westminster Abbey.
Other places worth visiting in Peterborough are the Parish Church and a well-preserved thirteenth-century manor-house at Longthorpe.
[Illustration: Photochrom Co., Ltd.
PETERBOROUGH CATHEDRAL
The magnificent west front, which has recently been restored.]
SOUTHAMPTON
=How to get there.=—Train from Waterloo. L. and S.W. Railway.
=Nearest Stations.=—Southampton Docks or Southampton West.
=Distance from London.=—78-3/4 miles.
=Average Time.=—Varies between 2-1/4 to 3-1/2 hours.
1st 2nd 3rd
=Fares.=—Single 13s. 0d. 8s. 2d. 6s. 6d.
Return 23s. 0d. 14s. 6d. 11s. 6d.
=Accommodation Obtainable.=—"The Royal Hotel," "Radley's Hotel,"
"London and South-Western Hotel," "Dolphin Hotel," "Royal
Pier Hotel," "Flower's Temperance," etc.
=Alternative Route.=—From Paddington. Fares as above.
The earliest accounts of Southampton are vague and uncertain. On the opposite bank of the Itchen, at Bitterne, was the Roman station of Clausentum, but Southampton itself seems to have been originally a settlement of the West Saxons. In the reign of William the Conqueror, Southampton, owing to its situation, became the principal port of embarkation for Normandy. In 1295 it first returned representatives to Parliament, and in 1345 was strongly fortified, and able to contribute twenty-one ships to the Royal Navy, Portsmouth only supplying five. Many expeditions for Normandy embarked here during the reigns of the Plantagenets, and the men who fought and won at Crecy and Agincourt must have passed, on the way to their ships, under the old West Gate, which still remains much as it was in those stirring times.