Justice of the Common Pleas, Oliver St. John, obtained a grant of the
ruined Minster, which he gave to the town for use as a parish church,
their own parish church having also gone to decay. This gentleman was
doubly allied to the Cromwell family, his first wife being
great-grand-daughter of Sir Henry Cromwell, of Hinchinbrooke, and his
second wife daughter of Henry Cromwell, of Upwood. He had been sent upon
a distasteful embassy to Holland, where he experienced many indignities;
and on his return, according to Mark Noble,[16] "he protested, that all
the favour which he received in reward for this embassy, was, that he
obtained the cathedral of Peterborough, which was propounded to be sold
and demolished, to be granted to the citizens of that place." The
interest that he took in Peterborough arose from the fact that he
resided at Longthorpe Hall, about two miles off.

The burden of restoring the church to a decent condition being too great
for the inhabitants, they agreed to pull down the Lady Chapel, and sell
the materials. This was done, except that some portion of the woodwork
was utilised in repairs. The painted boards from the roof were made into
backs for the seats in the choir. An engraving of the choir as it
appeared in the eighteenth century shews these boards. They are mostly
adorned with the letter M surmounted by a crown, and the three lions of
England, in alternate lozenges. Until the Restoration the church was
served by a school-master of the Charterhouse, Samuel Wilson, appointed
by the London Committee. When the cathedral body was restored, further
repairs were gradually effected, and when Dean Patrick wrote, he says
that the church was "recovering her ancient beauty and lustre again."

But the same causes which operated to prevent very much being done for
years after the dissolution of monasteries, the absence of any special
fabric fund, and the inadequacy of the revenues, again produced the same