St. Peter's Day

St. Peter is the principle patron saint of Peterborough Cathedral. Each year in June we celebrate the Petertide period with a festival weekend known as Peterfest. As well as the joyful atmosphere, Cathedral tours, drama performances, musical offering and children’s activities, the key religious focus of the festivities is a special Choral Evensong on the eve of St. Peter’s Day followed by a special Cathedral Eucharist and Choral Evensong on the day itself.

2009’s celebrations took the form of two special weekends of family friendly activity in conjunction with the Peterborough Festival team. The opening weekend saw hundreds turn out for our fundraising concert, ‘Summer Heights’, where three outstanding choirs joined together in a bid to raise vital funding required to complete restoration to the Cathedral’s West Front. This excellent event, kindly sponsored by The Park Inn Hotel, ensured Peterfest began with a brilliant bang and raised an impressive £1500 towards this important project. To find out more about the West Front Project and how you can help please click here.

The fun, however, did not end there. On the second weekend, as many as 10,000 visitors were treated to a trip back in time as 3,000 years worth of local history were brought to life right before their very eyes. With a medieval market and Heritage Festival set up within the grounds, the crowds turned out on mass to enjoy the archery, falconry and historical re-enactments by some very convincing Viking Knights. To see video footage of this exciting event please click here.

This event also included the Cathedral Open Day, which had been brought forward from its usual September date. The Open Day this year also had a historic theme with hundreds of guests took part in our ‘Dead Interesting Tour’ where costumed Cathedral guides brought some of the Cathedral’s most interesting People of the Past back to life, including Katharine of Aragon and Edith Cavell.

Peterfest celebrations were then rounded off with a visit from the Archbishop of Canterbury for a special Choral Evensong on June 28th. On St. Peter’s Day itself hundreds gathered to give thanks for the life of Bishop Ian who died on May 7th 2009. Invited guests also enjoyed a celebration of the life of Bishop Ian at the annual garden party held in the Palace grounds where Ian’s wife Jo was presented with commemorative gifts. For more information on the garden party and Bishop Ian.

If you would like to find out more about Peterfest 2010 please check back to this page or call the Cathedral Office on 01733 343342 nearer the time.