ABSTRACT
This paper aims to re-assess the available documentary and archaeological evidence for the buildings of the Anglo-Saxon abbey church of Peterborough and to place them into the context of the history of the monastery, founded in the 7th century. The monastery lay within a defended enclosure or ‘burh’ of two periods of construction: an earlier earth and timber rampart, and a later masonry wall. The latter perhaps dates to c. 1000. Two structural phases of the church are discerned: the nave of the mid-Anglo-Saxon building; and the late Anglo-Saxon enlargement to the east of this nave. The latter is assigned to the period of the foundation of the Benedictine monastery by Bishop Æthelwold in the late 10th century and throws important light on the architecture of the period. A reconstruction of the building in its later phase is offered.
