St John the Baptist is Peterborough's parish church. It was built in 1407 using materials from the previous church, once located on an area prone to flooding. The sexton of St John the Baptist buried two queens in the nearby Cathedral - Katherine of Aragon (1536) and Mary, Queen of Scots (1587). During the Commonwealth, the parish church narrowly escaped being demolished to provide materials for the repair of the cathedral. Its registers show, among other things, the devastation brought by plague between 1665-67. Extensive repairs were carried out in the 19th century, following the removal of its spire, for safety reasons, and the collapse of a portion of the tower in a gale. Among its many features are a fine south porch and a stunning east window.

The church of St Magnus the Martyr (a Viking Jarl born c1075), is a bit of a surprise. It is located on a part of the Thames foreshore reclaimed by the Romans and for 700 years stood at the northern end of London Bridge - so everyone arriving or leaving that way would have passed by its door. It was one of the first casualties of the Great Fire of 1666, was rebuilt by Christopher Wren and suffered again during the Blitz of 1940. The interior is quite high church, almost Roman Catholic, and includes a life-size model of a Viking (intended to represent St Magnus). Among its fascinating treasures is its great clock, dating from 1700, a fascinating model of Old London Bridge and a section of Roman timber.

St Martin's is the oldest ecclesiastical building in Britain still used as a church. It was the private chapel of Queen Bertha of Kent, the Christian Queen of the pagan King Ethelbert of Kent in the 6th century. This was before the arrival of St Augustine to convert the southern English to Christianity; St Augustine is said to have used St Martin's as a base before founding the nearby abbey and cathedral. The church, by tradition, is thought to be a renovated Roman building. It was enlarged in the 7th century, extended in the 11th century and the tower was added in the 14th century. The creator of Rupert Bear, Mary Tourtel, is buried in the graveyard.

St Martin's is part of the World Heritage Site that includes Canterbury Cathedral and the ruins of St Augustine's Abbey. The church has limited opening and depends on volunteers; check the website before making a special journey.

St Mary's, Swinbrook, is a 12th century parish church most famous for its Fettiplace memorials, two ornate carved 17th century monuments each featuring three recumbent effigies of members of the local Fettiplace family. The churchyard also contains the graves of four of the Mitford sisters, Nancy, Unity, Diana and Pamela and their parents. A further notable memorial is to HMS P514. If that's not enough, the church also contains 15th century misericords and is in a charming location.

Oxford’s historic church of St Mary Magdalen stands on a traffic island near the Martyr’s Memorial, surrounded by an unruly churchyard. It looks like a rural oasis amidst the chaos of a city centre. The church is built on the site of a Saxon timber church that stood outside the city walls and which was destroyed by Vikings in the early 11th century. A new stone chapel was built in 1074 but the current building dates from the 12th century and was considerably rebuilt in the Victorian period. There is an ornate 14th century font and the tower is 16th century. Parliamentary troops were held prisoner in the church during the English Civil War, when Oxford was Charles I’s capital.