Meet one of the Cathedral’s newest tour guides

Peterborough Cathedral has a regular programme of introducing new people into our team of tour guides. One of the most recent additions to the team is Susan Hibbins, and we asked her about her experience so far. 

Can you tell us why you decided to be a tour guide?

I have always loved visiting and worshipping at the Cathedral, and enjoy history. When I moved from full-time to part-time work some time ago I saw it as an opportunity to try something worthwhile and interesting. 

What did the training involve?

It was based on a ten-week course, run by Jonathan Baker, the Canon Missioner, and others who have particular knowledge of the Cathedral’s history. The group met weekly for a couple of hours, usually exploring the Cathedral from top to bottom – literally! 

We were able to descend under the Cathedral to the foundations of the first abbey, to scale the heights of the Tower and go outside onto the roof. We also explored the Precincts and the early monastic buildings, learning about the Benedictine abbey and the monks who lived and prayed there, and enjoyed the peace of the gardens. Each week we were given handouts to back up the information and took copious notes. 

Were there any surprises in what you learnt about the Cathedral’s history?

The most surprising and thought-provoking thing for me was to hear about all the people involved in making the Cathedral what it is today, not only the architects, abbots and the well known, but all the hundreds of ordinary people who must have toiled long hours and never lived to see the building completed. 

One of the fascinating details we saw on the tower tour was the masons’ marks on the stonework, recording which mason had worked where – these were the real people working daily as people do today. And when we saw the medieval stained glass windows, I thought about the unknown people who cared enough to gather up the fragments of glass after Cromwell’s destructive visit in 1643, and save them so that we can see them today. 

There was also the thrill of hearing about the national events that touched the Cathedral: the wildness of Hereward the Wake, the tragic stories of Katharine of Aragon and Mary, Queen of Scots, and that of Old Scarlett, who buried them both. If all that wasn’t enough, the sense of history is even clearer when you realise that the rare wooden windlass, which can be seen on the tower tour, has been dated as being a living tree at the time of the Norman Conquest!

Is there anything you are particularly looking forward to in your role as a guide?

I hope I can convey something of the grandeur and power of the Cathedral as a building and as a worshipping community, and also the sense of history and of continuation. Despite the ups and downs of the centuries, the destructive power of kings like Henry VIII and rulers like Oliver Cromwell, an incendiary bomb of World War II, fires, and everything else that has been thrown at it, the Cathedral is still here and still thriving.

I feel privileged to have learned so much on the guiding course, and I am looking forward very much to passing on the story to the people who visit.