Peterborough

Peterborough city (1991 pop. 68,371), SE Ont., Canada, NE of Toronto. It is at the falls of the Otonabee River, which connects, through the Trent Canal, with lakes Ontario and Huron. Settled early in the 19th cent. as a lumber town, it is a railroad and industrial center and is headquarters of the Canadian General Electric Company. Peterborough is also a resort for the Kawartha Lakes region. The lift-locks on the Trent-Severn waterway are the world's highest. Trent Univ. and a canoe museum are there. Archaeologically valuable Native American sites are nearby.

Peterborough. At a Saxon village on the site a monastery was established c.655. After the church had been destroyed by the Danes, it was rebuilt c.966 by Ethelwold, Bp. of Winchester, who dedicated it to St Peter; hence the village came to be called ‘Peterborough’. This church having been burnt in 1116, the foundations of a new one were laid in 1117; it was completed in 1237, and in 1541 it became the cathedral of the newly constituted diocese.

Peterborough, diocese of The see, now comprising Northamptonshire and parts of Cambridgeshire and Leicestershire, was founded by Henry VIII in 1541 out of the Lincoln diocese. The cathedral was built between 1118 and 1237 as the Benedictine abbey church. Catherine of Aragon was buried there.