United Kingdom · England
Where to Stay in Peterborough, England
Peterborough is a cathedral city on the River Nene in Cambridgeshire, England, grown around an abbey founded in 655.
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Where to stay in Peterborough
Not every neighbourhood fits every trip — here's what each one is good for.
PeterboroughUnited KingdomHampton Hargate
Hampton Hargate belongs to Hampton, one of Peterborough's four townships, on ground south of the city's main built-up area.Where to stay →PeterboroughUnited KingdomHampton Vale
Hampton Vale forms half of Hampton Hargate and Vale, a Peterborough township on the ground south of the city's built-up area.Where to stay →PeterboroughUnited KingdomOld Fletton
Old Fletton is a Peterborough district holding Railworld, Fletton Towers and the Church of St Margaret with its churchyard cross.Where to stay →PeterboroughUnited KingdomEastfield
Eastfield is a residential quarter of Peterborough, sharing the Peterborough East ward with Fengate and Parnwell.Where to stay →PeterboroughUnited KingdomEastgate
Eastgate is the Peterborough suburb between Peterborough Cathedral and Fengate, set in the Peterborough Central ward.Where to stay →PeterboroughUnited KingdomOrton Longueville
Orton Longueville is a Peterborough suburb on the route of the A1, lying south of the River Nene.Where to stay →About Peterborough
Peterborough grew around its great abbey.
What is Peterborough known for?
Founded in 655 on the edge of the fens, the monastery became one of the finest Norman cathedrals in England, and the city spread around it along the River Nene. Flag Fen holds a far older past nearby. Faith and the fen shaped the place.
What are the main landmarks in Peterborough?
The cathedral dominates the heart of Peterborough. Its Norman west front rises over the old abbey precinct and the market square, the greatest sight in the city, with the Church of St John the Baptist standing nearby. Older marks lie around the edges.
Flag Fen preserves its Bronze Age causeway, Longthorpe Tower keeps its medieval paintings, and the Peterborough Museum and Art Gallery gathers the town's long past.
What is the history of Peterborough?
People crossed the fen at Flag Fen three thousand years ago. Bronze Age builders drove a great wooden causeway out across the marsh there, and its timbers still lie preserved in the wet ground. The marsh preserved it all.
The fen gave fish, fowl, and reed to the monks and the villages around. In 655, monks founded an abbey on a dry fen island. The great church they raised grew into one of the finest Norman cathedrals in England.
The town gathered around the abbey gates. A castle rose in Norman times, and manors like Longthorpe Tower spread through the surrounding land, its rooms still bright with medieval paintings. The fen kept the city apart for centuries.
Then the railways came, and Peterborough became a great junction of the lines, its works and yards remembered at Railworld. The Peterborough Museum and Art Gallery gathers the whole long story. New Town estates ringed the old core in the modern age, but the cathedral still holds the heart of the place.
Where is Peterborough?
Peterborough stands on the edge of the fens. The city sits on the River Nene in northern Cambridgeshire, where the flat drained marshland of the fenland meets the low farm country to the west. Dykes and channels drain the black soil.
The fen and the river fix the land.
What is the climate of Peterborough?
Peterborough shares the dry east of England. The fenland sees less rain than most of the country, with cool grey winters and mild, changeable summers off the North Sea. Frost settles on the flat land in winter.
The fen holds the mist through the cold months.
How do you get to Peterborough?
Peterborough sits on the east-coast main line. Fast trains reach London in under an hour, and the roads cross nearby between the Midlands and the east, making the city a busy junction on the edge of the fens. Buses serve the fenland towns around.
Most arrive by rail, straight into the centre.
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Updated September 2026