Construction of the Becket Chapel and adjacent hospital began in 1174, to house many of the monastery’s holy relics, not least the relics of the newly canonised St Thomas Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury. Becket had visited the abbey with King Henry II in 1154, but was later murdered in Canterbury Cathedral on the probable orders of the king. Abbot Benedict acquired some of Becket’s relics for Peterborough Abbey to encourage pilgrims, including the flagstone his head laid on as he died; a bottle of Becket’s blood (said to never congeal); and Becket’s bloodied undergown that he was wearing as he was murdered. The latter was ceremonially washed on feast days – the washing water then collected and sold to pilgrims as a cure-all. The Becket Chapel survives today as the Cathedral’s tea-room.
