CHESTERTON. CHURCH : ST MICHAELS. EXTERIOR PHOTOGRAPHS
Chesterton is my home village, and I have spent many hours over the years in the grounds of St Michaels, taking photographs. I have many photographs so I thought that I would try and include as many as possible on this site. For that reason, I have decided to put together one complete page of exterior photographs of St Michaels, and one page of interior photographs.
Chesterton is a very small village, which can be found five miles to the West of Peterborough. Small in size but big in history, the area is rich in Roman history. There is a hill in the village called Ivens Hill, and on top of this there was a Roman Signal Station which served the Roman military garrison at nearby Durobrivae, near to where the village of Water Newton is today. A measure of the importance of this area can be seen by the fact that the oldest ever Roman Christian Silver Plate was found here in the mid 1970's.
There is evidence of Roman occupation to be seen within the nicely kept church grounds at Chesterton. A Roman stone coffin, pictured below right, was found during mid 19th Century excavations, and was paced in the church grounds. Stone Roman coffins are also to be seen in the church grounds at neighbouring Water Newton and Castor. A little further afield, there are also some very fine examples to be found in the church grounds at Barnack.
There is also a base of a medieval cross to be seen, pictured below left. A recent theory has suggested that this cross base is a re-used section of a Roman column, possibly coming from a villa. It is thought that some of the stonework used when building St Michaels was recycled from buildings from Durobrivae.
A church and priest are mentioned in the Domesday Book but the present building dates back to the 12th century whilst the aisles and tower are 13th and early 14th centuries. In the 17th century the chancel and the porch were rebuilt for Robert Pigott, Lord of the Manor. Since then there has been no new building only constant restoration and repair. The most recent repairs to the tower and the nave roof were financed by American descendents of the Beville family who were Lords of the Manor before they emigrated in the early 17th century.
Considering that St Michaels is very close to the A605 and the A1, the church itself is set in grounds that are peaceful and quiet. The church itself is set back well from the main road in to Peterborough and the main noise heard by a visitor is liable to be from the pigeons. Visitors to the church will find it locked, with key holders listed in the porch.
The photograph on the left was taken from half way up the tower at St Michaels, in a truly miserable Saturday afternoon in September 2007.The church in the centre of the photograph is that of St Kyneburgha at nearby Castor.
The whole area around Chesterton and Castor is full of Roman history, and you may notice a grass bank with a single tree on it, below and to the left of the church. I am told that this was the site of a Roman villa.
Where you see the church at Castor standing today was the site of a massive Roman Villa, one of the largest ever excavated in this country. More on that can be found in the pages devoted to Castor in the Cambs A-F section of this site.
The traffic that can be seen in the foreground of this photograph are on the A1.
Chesterton has its own web site. To see more photographs of St Michaels, along with past and present photographs of the village, click the photograph immeadiately above.
To visit the website for St Michaels Chesterton, St Andrews Alwalton, All Saints Elton, St Remigius Water Newton and St John The Baptist Stibbington please click on the photograph immediately above.
