Looking back: How Cathedral Square has changed over 130 years

Cathedral Square – known as Market Square until the 1960s – has been the beating heart of our city for centuries.

As well as being Peterborough’s de-facto centre of trade and commerce for as long as anyone can remember, the square has acted as the population’s focal point for all manner of significant events, from proclamations, jubilees and street parties to military parades, recruitment drives and mass protests.

While the square does, thankfully, still retain an air of timeless appeal (at least, in places), there’s no doubting the old place has changed a great deal over the years. Whether that change has been for better or worse is something we can all debate ‘till the sun goes down. Thankfully, the degree and speed at which change has come to Cathedral Square has been relatively slow. For sure, if someone were from 1890 were to travel through time and magically appear in Cathedral Square in 2023, they would immediately know where they were.

While we sadly cannot travel through time to experience the change for ourselves, we can do the next best thing and wallow in some amazing photographic nostalgia, courtesy of our friends at Peterborough Images.

So why not make a cuppa, pull up a chair, and join us as we take you through a guided tour of Market/Cathedral Square through the ages. With photos sourced from every decade between the 1890s and 2020s, it’s the closest you’ll get to time travel this side of a Tardis...