History:

• In 1538, King Henry VII donated land for a grand mansion to be built for the Orme family.  
• In 1816 Thomas Cooke, a former Manchester businessman turned Peterborough magistrate, along with his new wife Charlotte owned the grand Georgian house.
• In 1854 Thomas Cooke died.
• In 1856 the building was sold to the third Earl Fitzwilliam under which it became Peterborough's first hospital, the Peterborough Infirmary up until 1928.
• In 1884, after a blaze the building was altered to include new wings on the side and an extension to the rear.
• In 1928, the hospital was moved into the New Memorial Hospital on Midland Road, constructed as a memorial to the Peterborians killed in the First World War. Today, it is part of the Peterborough District Hospital.
• In 1931 Percy Malcolm Stewart, chair of The London Brick Company, acquired the building and subsequently donated it to the Museum Society. A potato merchant rented the top floor.
• In 1939, the art gallery was built thanks to the funds of Lady Taylor; but with the onslaught of war the first exhibition was delayed until 1948.
• In 1947 it became affiliated with the Natural History, Scientific and Archaeological Societies.
• In late 1947 it was bestowed the title of the Museum Society.
• In 1968, the Museum City donated the museum and its collection to Peterborough City Council.

Architecture:

The Georgian building of Ashlar stone has horizontal stringcourses that separate the three storeys; they join the stone architraves of the five windows, which are in recesses, on the ground and first floor. A parapet outlines the slate roof.

The central façade of the building breaks forward the wood and glass main doubled door entrance. The portico porch, with its four fluted Greek Doric columns has an ornamental iron balustrade (the family arms of the Orme family) above it. The ground floor windows are longer than the rest and stretch to the internal ground floor.

The 2-storey wings to the left and the right were added later but were designed to match the original building. Behind the railings the original Georgian cellars still exist.

Internally, around 1947, there were two main halls for the exhibits, the upper one alone giving twice the accommodation of the old Museum in the A Becket Chapel, Minster Precincts. A roomy gallery annex was reserved for the Ornithological Collection.

In addition to the Upper and Lower Halls, there was a very wide corridor for the fossil and similar exhibits, a library, lecture room, and a darkroom for photographic purposes. Over the Library was the Caretaker’s house, where Mr. and Mrs Chas Beech lived. The whole building was heated by hot water, had electric lights and electric bells throughout.

The modern conservation room is the old operating theatre.

The museum was listed as a Grade II building on the 7th February 1952.

Social History :

• The street Priestgate dates back to the 12th century and was in Martin de Bec’s plan for the town. It was the last street before the river, which at that time was a very upmarket part of the town.
• In 1871, the Peterborough Natural History Society and Field Club were founded to promote interest in local natural history.Members included Dr Walker (surgeon at the hospital) and Mr Bodger (local chemist).
• There are photographs of the move from the Peterborough Infirmary to the Midland hospital of the patients being pushed in the beds over the Crescent Bridge.
• Whilst the building was a hospital, the hospital secretary Alfred Caleb Taylor built his own x-ray machine in 1896 making Peterborough the first city to have one installed outside of London. Unfortunately, he died from radiation poisoning.
• In 1947, when the Society began assembling the museum collections, the first collection was kept in a cardboard box under a member's bed. Various buildings have housed the collection during its history, including a house on Park Road and a former chapel in the Cathedral Precincts.
• The museum holds 400-500 pieces of artwork including two Turner Watercolours. It has at present 227,000 objects of which only 5% are on display at one time. It also has the largest collection of John Clare manuscripts.
• The photo collection and manuscripts are now being archived and intention is to put it all onto the Internet.
• The museum also holds one of the three best collections of marine fossils and the most complete example of a plesiosaur in existence.
• The museum is supposed to be one of the most haunted buildings in Peterborough. Sergeant Thomas Hunter, an Australian soldier, who died in the hospital in 1916, is believed to haunt the museum.