What does Peterborough have to offer? Not much except a Cathedral?
Well actually, it does! We Love Peterborough is all about raising awareness of what’s on, what’s new and sharing the good things about our city. We started out way back in April 2014 with 1 follower (me) and a bunch of photographs. Nearly 7 years on and we have a following of over 17,000 people. We believe that all you have to do is open your eyes and see what’s right in front of you.
We are all guilty of getting used to our surroundings no matter where we live. We go sort of ‘nose blind’ and think the grass is always greener on the other side, forgetting how much we have in our own home town. So, in order to get some positivity back to the city’s people as we started to come out of lockdown, in August, We Love Peterborough ran a follower photograph competition where people had to send in their own photos of their favourite places. What a bombardment of photographs! Lots of entries were received and in turn we posted them on to our website and social media page for everyone to see and admire. It wasn’t about who was the best photographer at all, it was all about capturing that place at that time.
At the end of August a winner was announced from the most people votes (likes) – Matthew Cross was our lucky winner with his photograph of a beautiful Gunwade Lake at Nene Park Trust’s Ferry Meadows. I do have to add that it’s a very popular place and very hard to ‘not’ get a lovely photograph from anywhere within this nature haven. There are so many opportunities with three lakes, a miniature train, walks, trees, flowers, the meadows, herons, swans, cows, Bluebell Woods, the golf course and if you look carefully you may even find a wooden owl hiding in a tree. As a prize the photo was put on our Facebook page as our cover photo for the month of September for everyone to enjoy.
So, which places were entered on this bunch of lovely photographs? I hear you ask. Here you go:
⦁ The Embankment and River Nene with its swans and the overlooking Fletton Quays.
⦁ Ferry Meadows with its lakes, fauna, wildlife and swans.
⦁ Milton Ferry Bridge great for long walks and countryside views.
⦁ Crown Lakes great for walking, lakes and lots of green scenery.
⦁ Nene Valley Railway line with vintage steam trains and walks alongside the track.
⦁ Orton Mere with the locks, the river, the boats and huts.
⦁ Railworld with lots of train memorabilia plus a Wildlife Haven next door.
⦁ The Sculpture Park with many works of art scattered around the rowing lake.
⦁ Stanground Locks and swan families (sorry we do seem to get a lot of swans) LOL.
⦁ And not forgetting Peterborough Cathedral, of course, which is our main city centre attraction.
Due to the lockdown of events more people were having to stay in their local areas, going outdoors to walk to keep healthy which in turn meant that people were starting to see their part of the city and surrounding area for its best parts again. Surprisingly, even though Peterborough is a large and growing city you can still feel that you are in the countryside when you step out your front door or maybe a few minute’s drive away.
With so many lovely photographs sent in of the places people love, we can’t help but think we need to go and see them…
Why not join us on our journey over the next few months as We Love Peterborough goes out and about to show you what we have to offer. We may just find a few of these spots from the photographs to tell you exactly where it is and what it’s like. We’re sure we’ll be showing you something new that you’ve probably not see or heard of before that just might make you fall in love with Peterborough as much as we do.
So, if you were thinking there’s nowhere to go or nothing to see in Peterborough, think again!
You’ll find all the entries of these beautiful places on our competition campaign page www.welovepeterborough.co.uk/wlpcoverphoto-comp-2020/
This was the Spark Magazine article for October 2020
