At Peterborough we stand on the brink of the lowland. It is not yet actual fen; the Cathedral, the town, stand on a thin bed of rock, which overlies clay and provides a foundation. Here, about the year 655, the place being then called Medeshamstede, a monastery was founded. For more than two centuries it flourished; then the Dane swooped down on the fenland abbey, and for nearly a hundred years it was desolate. It was rebuilt about 966, and in less than a century had become so wealthy that in the days of Abbot Leofric, a great benefactor, it was called the golden burgh of Peter. The splendour for a time was dimmed when the monastery was burnt, and the church sacked, by Hereward the Wake as an English welcome to the first Norman Abbot. All of this church that was above ground has long disappeared, but considerable portions of the foundation have been discovered during the recent alterations, and will not be again buried. The grand Norman structure which still remains—one of the most complete in the kingdom—was begun about 1118, and completed, except the west front, about 1190. That—a structure perfectly unique, a gigantic portico, in the form of three huge pointed arches—is assigned to the first quarter of the thirteenth century. For boldness of design and perfection of execution it is unsurpassed by anything of this period in the kingdom. The small spires, the pinnacles, and the porch, unfortunately stuffed between the piers of the central arch, are of later date. The “new building” or lady chapel at the east end is a fine piece of Tudor work, but it has not improved the lower part of the Norman church. The Perpendicular architects have inserted poor tracery in many of the windows, and have made other alterations, seldom for the better, but less mischief has been done at Peterborough by these meddlesome blunderers than in most other Norman cathedrals.
HUNTINGDON BRIDGE.
The Welland rises, as has been said, on the high ground near Naseby, but runs parallel with the outcrop of the rocks, while the stream going to the Nen descends with their slope. Thus the valley of the former widens rapidly, and before reaching Market Harborough is already trench-like in outline. This, for long a sleepy little town, seems to have been stimulated into some life by the meeting of railways. Still it possesses one or two old houses, a chapel and a church of some interest; and from it Charles led his army to the fatal field of Naseby. Below Harborough the valley of the Welland continues to broaden and flatten its bed, the slopes often rising steeply on both northern and southern sides. Though sometimes pleasantly wooded around the site of some old family mansion, they are commonly rather bare, and the scenery is on the whole less attractive than is usual in this region of England. Such churches also as are near the river are not remarkable, and it is not till we come to Rockingham that we care to pause. Here, however, high on the right bank, backed by shady woods, are the terraces, gables, and the remaining bulwarks of Rockingham Castle. The road climbs through the picturesque village to the grey old gateway, which, with other portions, dates from the thirteenth century, but the part more conspicuous from the valley is mainly of the reign of Elizabeth. “Anywhere the high site of Rockingham, backed with its avenues of limes and groups of forest trees, would be a fine one, but in Northamptonshire the wild and broken ground of the park, and the abrupt slopes and earthworks on which the castle stands, make it signally unique.” The earlier kings of England not seldom used this for a hunting seat in the days when Rockingham Forest was a reality instead of a name.
The river winds on with little change in the general character of the scenery; the tower of Gretton looks down from the high scarp of the right bank, the little spire of Seaton rises among trees hardly less high on the left, the small village of Harringworth, with its grey stone houses, its interesting church, and its old cross still standing in the market-place, lies by the river side, near to which a branch of the Midland Railway crosses river and valley on a mighty viaduct of brick arches. Then Collyweston crowns the slope on the right. Here are the quarries of so-called slate, which in former days roofed all the churches and most of the mansions for miles round—a material in its slight irregularity of form and colour far more pleasing to the eye than the formal smoothness and dull tints of the slates of Wales or Westmorland, which now find favour with builders. Then near the river are more grey houses, always worth a passing glance, for they are often at least a couple of centuries old, and as stone was plentiful and good, men in those times forbore to do their work “on the cheap.” But here is something more, for above them rises the steeple of Ketton church, perhaps the most graceful to be found in any village in England. High on the hills behind are the famous quarries, which for long took the place of those of Barnack, but are now in their turn becoming exhausted.
OLD BRIDGE, ST. IVES.
Then above the willow trees by the water, grey houses, towers, and spires, rise from the bed of the valley, climb the slope on the left, and that on the right also, till the suburb is arrested by densely massed woods. These hide from view the palatial mansion of Burghley; this is “Stamford town,” once a noted halting-place on the great North Road. There is, perhaps, no town in England of the same size which is more picturesque or more interesting. Grey stone houses, often of excellent design, overhang the river, and border the streets; the steeple of St. Mary’s is very similar, and hardly inferior, to that of Ketton; that of All Saints is also fine. In St. Martin’s, near the gate, Burghley, the great Lord Treasurer, the founder of the houses of Exeter and Salisbury, lies buried; the Burghley Bede House, Browne’s Hospital, and the ruined priory of St. Leonard’s, are full of interest, and the town boasts that to it, as to Northampton, there was once a migration from Oxford.