About
Peterborough Museum and Art Gallery is one of the oldest and most comprehensive museums in the Fens, housed in a striking Grade II listed building that began life as a Georgian private residence, later served as a hospital, and has been home to the city's collections since 1881. The building's handsome façade on Priestgate belies the richness of the collections within — spanning geology, archaeology, natural history, fine art, and the social history of one of England's most historically layered cities.
The museum's geological collections reflect a remarkable and often overlooked fact: the Peterborough area sits on some of the richest Jurassic fossil-bearing deposits in Britain. The limestone quarries that once encircled the city yielded an extraordinary wealth of marine reptile fossils, including plesiosaurs and ichthyosaurs, as well as the invertebrate fauna of the Jurassic seas. These fossils, many collected by Victorian quarry workers and local enthusiasts, form one of the museum's most compelling holdings and tell the story of a time, 165 million years ago, when this part of England lay beneath a warm shallow sea teeming with life.
Archaeologically, Peterborough stands at the confluence of several critical periods of British history. The Roman town of Durobrivae, situated just west of modern Peterborough at Water Newton, was one of the most important industrial and commercial centres in Roman Britain — a major pottery-producing town whose Nene Valley wares were traded across the province. The museum holds significant Roman material including pottery, coins, metalwork, and domestic objects that illuminate the town's prosperous commercial life. Saxon Peterborough and the great Benedictine abbey that became Peterborough Cathedral are also represented, with medieval stonework and monastic artefacts tracing the city's spiritual and cultural heart.
Among the museum's most celebrated associations is the poet John Clare (1793–1864), known as the 'peasant poet' — born in nearby Helpston, Clare is one of the most important nature poets in the English language, and his deeply personal observations of the Northamptonshire countryside have enjoyed growing critical recognition. The museum holds material relating to Clare's life and work, celebrating a writer whose understanding of landscape and loss speaks powerfully to modern environmental concerns.
The Art Gallery component presents a collection of fine and decorative art spanning several centuries, with particular strengths in nineteenth and early twentieth-century British painting and decorative ceramics. Temporary exhibitions complement the permanent collections, bringing contemporary art and touring shows to the city throughout the year.
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Highlights
Jurassic Fossil Collection
The Peterborough area sits on some of the richest Jurassic limestone deposits in Britain, and the museum's fossil collection reflects this extraordinary geological inheritance. Victorian quarry workers and local collectors amassed an impressive range of specimens from the Oxford Clay and Cornbrash formations that underlie the Fens, including the bones of plesiosaurs and ichthyosaurs — the great marine reptiles that patrolled the Jurassic seas some 165 million years ago when this part of England lay submerged beneath warm, shallow waters.
The invertebrate fauna of these ancient seas — ammonites, belemnites, bivalves, and echinoderms — is also richly represented, providing a comprehensive picture of a lost world that lies just beneath the fields and fenland of modern Cambridgeshire.
Roman Durobrivae
The Roman town of Durobrivae, positioned at the crossing of Ermine Street over the River Nene at modern Water Newton, was one of the most commercially significant settlements in Roman Britain — a major centre of the Nene Valley pottery industry whose distinctive colour-coated wares were traded across the province and beyond.
The museum holds an important collection of material from Durobrivae and its surrounding landscape, including pottery vessels of remarkable quality, coins, metalwork, building materials, and domestic objects that together paint a vivid picture of a prosperous provincial town at the heart of Roman Britain's road network.
The Water Newton Treasure, a hoard of early Christian silver found nearby, puts Peterborough at the heart of British Christian history.
John Clare — The Peasant Poet
Peterborough Museum celebrates its connection to John Clare (1793–1864), one of the most important nature poets in the English language and one of the most remarkable literary figures of the nineteenth century. Born into agricultural poverty in the village of Helpston, just north of Peterborough, Clare's poetry is rooted in precise and loving observation of the Northamptonshire countryside — its birds, flowers, field patterns, and seasonal rhythms.
He wrote with extraordinary clarity about a landscape he saw being transformed by enclosure and industrialisation, and his work has gained increasing critical recognition as a precursor of environmental writing.
The museum's material on Clare — manuscripts, portraits, and contextual displays — celebrates a writer of enduring significance.
Saxon Peterborough and the Cathedral
Peterborough's identity as a major English city is inseparable from its great Benedictine monastery, which grew from a Saxon foundation in the seventh century to become one of the wealthiest and most powerful religious houses in England. The museum's Saxon and medieval collections trace the development of Peterborough Abbey — which became a cathedral at the Dissolution — through stonework, metalwork, pottery, and documentary evidence.
Carved stonework from the Saxon and Norman periods speaks to the quality of craftsmanship that the abbey attracted, while the medieval collections illustrate the economic and cultural life of a monastic town that drew pilgrims and traders from across the region.
Collections
Jurassic Peterborough
The geology and palaeontology galleries presenting the Jurassic fossil collections and explaining the geological history of the Peterborough area, from its formation beneath Jurassic seas to the development of the landscape familiar today.
Roman Durobrivae
The Roman archaeology collection presenting material from the important Roman industrial town of Durobrivae at Water Newton, including Nene Valley pottery, metalwork, and domestic objects.
John Clare: The Peasant Poet
A permanent display celebrating Peterborough's most celebrated literary figure, with manuscripts, portraits, and contextual material exploring Clare's life, work, and enduring relevance.
Peterborough: A City Through Time
The social and local history galleries tracing Peterborough's development from Saxon foundation through medieval cathedral city, Victorian brick-making and railway town, to modern regional centre.
Current Exhibitions
The Art Gallery hosts a rolling programme of temporary exhibitions featuring contemporary and historic art, photography, and touring shows. Check the Vivacity website for current and upcoming exhibitions.