Gladstone Street Improvements

30/09/1975

Information

In November 1972, the city's Engineers' Department had released proposals to radically transform the general Gladstone Street area that was home to some 8,000 residents. Nothing happened! Finally, in April 1975, following repeated complaints by residents about the state of the district, council leader Charles Swift ordered a massive clean-up of the area. In mid-June it was reported that 268 houses in the area stood empty, derelict and vermin-ridden - 12 per cent of the total and an increase of 150 over the previous year. The Evening Telegraph could finally report on this day that something was to be done. It had been promised, it reported, that by the end of 1975 work would be underway to refurbish and redevelop the whole of the Gladstone Street area. It would not be instant, though. The whole scheme was forecast to take around eleven years and cost something in the order of £4.25 million, with much of that money going in grants to existing tenants to do some of the work themselves. By the end of May 1981, the Peterborough Evening Telegraph was able to inform its readers that the work was almost complete, the council having agreed on 26 May to spend a further £428,000 to complete the neighbourhood improvements.

Taken from The Peterborough Book of Days by Brian Jones, The History Press, 2014.

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Misbehaving Monks

08/07/1515

Information

The abbacy of Robert Kirkton was a time of extremes for both the monastery and the town. His great building projects have left us the New Building on the church and the Great Gate that now leads to the dean's offices. However, beyond this gate, he had allowed thirty tenements to fall into utter decay before turning the ground into a park for his deer! Running side by side with his grand projects was lax management and slipping morals. Kirkton himself 'wriggled and squirmed' when it came to repaying a debt to Henry VIII. When William Atwater, Bishop of Lincoln, visited the monastery on this day, he found many things 'out of order'. He reported that monk, John Walpole, was being seditious amongst his brethren. He also reported that he had stolen certain jewels from St Oswald's shrine, and what he could lay his hands on elsewhere, and given them to women in the town. So much for his vow of celibacy! It was also reported that certain monks haunted a tavern near the monastery - probably in the Boongate area - and gave themselves up to singing and dancing in the dormitory until 10 or 11 p.m., to the consternation of the rest of their brethren. (Gunton, Symon, The History of the Church in Peterborough, ed. Symon Patrick, 1990)

Taken from The Peterborough Book of Days by Brian Jones, The History Press, 2014.