THE TIME IN PETERBOROUGH IS

Thanks for taking a look at my site. I hope that you enjoy your stay and if you like (or dislike) the site then please let me know. For those who are not aware, Chesterton is a very small hamlet adjacent to the A605, approximately five miles from Peterborough in Cambridgeshire. Please be aware that there are two Chesterton's in Cambridgeshire, the other being part of Cambridge itself.

  Small in size but big in history with the whole area rich in Roman history. In this site, I will give a brief history of the village, show you around St Michaels church, and hopefully (eventually!!) have a page on here which lists names and dates of people buried in the church grounds or who have markers in the church itself. I hope that this will be of use to those tracing their family trees, who have ancestors who come from our village.

  The old photographs section of the site will show antique photographs from Chesterton, and neighbouring Alwalton. I would be very pleased to hear from anyone who has any old photographs that they think I would be interested in.

    If you are visiting from out of the area, please sign the visitors book, sincere best wishes

  Robin Peel site owner robinpeel@tiscali.co.uk

THE CHESTERTON PARISH BOUNDARY

Sincere thanks to Church Wardern Mrs Hillier for supplying the following....

"Chesterton Parish Boundary was established by the tenth Ccentury. This is shown by the Charters of 937 for Water Newton, 951 for Haddon and 955 for Alwalton, all of which respect the Chesterton boundary. Parish boundaries, which were introduced in order to support a Priest for the Church, were formalised by Bishops during the Eleventh Century. Before the advent of accurate maps the memory of the Parish boundaries was enforced each year in Rogation week, between Easter and Ascension day, when the ceremony of "beating the bounds" took place. On these occasions, boys were beaten at specific points along the boundary so that they would remember the boundaries and be able to swear on oath if a boundary dispute arose.

"The boundary follows the River Nnene until it reaches a small stream which it follows until it reaches the A1 or Great North Road. The A1 marks the boundary until it comes to the "old ditch" when it turns Westward until it reaches Billing Brook. The boundary then follows Billing Brook back to the river".

Photographs on this page. Top left and an exterior view of St Michaels Church, Chesterton in the snow. Under that, harvest time 2006.

  Pictured right, a late evening rainbow, with the picture taken from the front of my own house. Below, a picture taken from the top of Ivens Hill. Chesterton village in the foreground, with the magnificent Castor church standing proudly in the distance. The photograph was taken from alongside the Roman signal station which stands at the top of the hill. In Roman times a huge Roman Palace, the second largest ever excavated in this country, stood in the area where the church is today.

  At the foot of the page, on the left, close up detail from the Beville Monument which can be found inside St Michaels church. More photographs of St Michaels, interior and exterior, can be found by looking at the St Michaels section of this site.

  To the right of that, an old photograph of a horse and cart belonging to Teddy Tomkins, who had a smallholding in the village many years ago. I am always on the lookout for any more antique photographs, so please E Mail me if you have any that you would like to see on the site.

Sincere thanks go to a few people for making this site possible. It has not been easy to produce a website for a village with just over 50 houses and a population of probably less than 150! The following have made it much easier...!! Thanks to Judy and Jeff King for hearing out the original idea and not laughing. Jeff's knowledge of local history has been invaluable. Thanks to Church Wardern Jean Hillier for the information on Chesterton Parish Boundary and bits and pieces on St Michaels church. Thanks also go to Terry Glover for letting me scan many of his old photograph collection, several of which now appear in the Older Photographs section of this site.

  Sincere thanks as well to you for visiting. If you have arrived at this site by accident whilst looking for one of the other Chesterton's to be found in this country then sorry, you are in the wrong place....but please stay for a while and have a look around whilst you are here.