April Meeting

Our April meeting will take place on Thursday 13th, at 7.30pm, at St Andrew’s United Reformed Church, Ledbury Road, Netherton, Peterborough PE3 9RF . We’re delighted to welcome Dr Hilary Dawson, with “St Mary’s Church, Boongate”

St Mary’s Church, Boongate

St Mary’s in New Road doesn’t have a long history, but it’s an interesting one.  It was established in 1857 to be the parish church for the eastern fringes of Peterborough, ministering to the residents of the slums of Boongate, the isolated hamlet of Newark and various dispersed farms on the Fen edge.

Much has changed in the intervening 165 years, following years of expansion, urban renewal and Peterborough Development Corporation road schemes.  Boongate and Newark have both disappeared except as road names, and farmland turned into housing or industrial estates.  The original Victorian church has been demolished and replaced with a new building.  The two ‘daughter churches’ in Newark and Eastgate remain only in photos and memories.

Hilary Dawson, who manages St Mary’s Church archives, will take us on a trip back through the history of the church and its parish, touching also on some of the many changes which have taken place in eastern Peterborough since it was built.