Between 1997 and 2003, the nave ceiling at Peterborough Cathedral underwent a systematic programme of inspection, cleaning and conservation, coupled with chemical analyses of the surviving paint layers and extensive sampling of both the roof timbers and ceiling boards. The results were then brought together under the industrious eye of the current cathedral archaeologist, Jackie Hall, to form the volume under review. A number of findings were new and have implications for future work, particularly on the medieval timber trade. Two immediately stand out. The switch from English-grown ceiling boards of c 1210 in the transepts to boards of c 1240 imported from north Germany in the nave is one example, adding to what is becoming apparent elsewhere in the 1230s – the need for the long-distance sourcing of timber in England as local mature forest-grown oak became scarce from the second quarter of the thirteenth century. Another is the revelation that the overwhelming majority of ceiling boards were between 2.0–2.2m in length. As the maximum length of a diagonal in the large ceiling lozenges is just under 4.0m, presumably boards of riven oak substantially above 2.2m were unobtainable. A similar phenomenon can be noted in the late thirteenth-century wooden presbytery vault at St Albans, where short boards were joined in the long north–south severies. This suggests there was an effective maximum length for oak ceiling or web boards – a constraint more likely to have had an impact on the design of thirteenth-century wooden vaults than of ceilings, but one that may have been a consideration when deciding on the layout of painted schemes.

The book is divided into six chapters, dealing, respectively, with the background to the conservation project, the medieval nave and nave roof, transept ceilings, nave ceiling, post-medieval repairs and a summary of the actual conservation and recording work. The introduction reviews the findings of the various specialists and integrates these into the medieval history of the building as revealed in the Peterborough Chronicle. This is then followed by Don Mackreth’s account of the building of the nave and Hugh Harrison’s survey of the nave roof, who jointly establish an absolute chronology for the later stages of work. Applying a ‘Bayesian’ methodology to the various sap-wood dates revealed by tree-ring dating, Ian Tyers and Jackie Hall effectively demonstrate that the eastern eight bays of the nave were roofed in the 1180s, while the roofs over the western two bays of the nave were erected at about the same time as the north portico in the late 1220s. An invaluable bonus to the analysis of the nave is the publication of Mackreth’s phased elevations.

Meanwhile, the transept ceilings were already underway. Although less of the original ceiling survives here, there was enough to be able to establish a likely felling date of between 1203 and 1215. Harrison argues that the original plan might have been for a coffered ceiling on the basis of a series of unused longitudinal pockets in the north transept end wall, but that the beams were insufficiently substantial to allow it, and instead a flatter ceiling was created. If so, it involved a serious change of aesthetic, and a rectilinear grid integrated with the transept bay system gave way to an autonomous arrangement of overlapping diagonals. The pattern of lozenges adopted in the transepts is the effective prototype for the nave ceiling and, though it is impossible to reconstruct the painted design precisely, the arrangement of lined concentric lozenges in which the small central lozenge is used as a field for more intricate painting is the gestalt that then informs the nave.

Chapter Four deals with the nave ceiling – its materials, construction, chronology and imagery. While the roof may have been complete into the western nave extension by the late 1220s, the ceiling boards are unlikely to have been available before c 1238 and a date around 1240 during the abbacy of Walter of Bury St Edmunds (1233–45) is adopted. The one caveat is whether there was a single intensive felling and construction period, in which case the nave will have been ‘ceiled’ after 1238, or whether supply and construction were spread over the best part of a decade, in which case work could have begun in the eastern nave bays before 1238. Despite repainting in the 1740s and 1830s, the thirteenth-century design has survived, and significant elements of the original scheme can be seen in low relief. Enough paint is also there to establish that an oil-based medium was used, as were some relatively expensive high-quality pigments, such as azurite and vermilion. As for the imagery, Paul Binski summarises his earlier Harlaxton paper and argues that the sequence of kings, archbishops and bishops in the western part of the ceiling celebrates Peterborough’s pre-Conquest founders and benefactors, while St Peter, the Agnus Dei and Janus relate to the monastic choir, qualified by drolleries and musicians appropriate to a position around the edge of the choir enclosure. The celebrated images of the Liberal Arts, in no obvious order and positioned peripherally in the outer lozenges, Binski compares with pavements.

Finally, Chapters Five and Six bring the story up to date, reviewing the physical and documentary evidence for post-medieval repairs and recording the interventions made between 1997 and 2003. In all this there is just one issue that sits uneasily in the text. While he was sacrist, Robert of Lindsey whitewashed the ‘volsuras’ in the retrochoir (fecit dealbare volsuras in retro choro). For Don Mackreth this probably referred to the intended nave vault, and might even be taken as evidence it was built. ‘Volsura’ can be translated as ‘vault’, though it is cognate with the modern French ‘voussure’, or voussoir. It could refer to ribs or arches. In so far as there is one vault at Peterborough which was unquestionably built – a rib vault over the principal apse, to the east of the presbytery and high altar – was this not the vault, or the vault ribs and enclosing arch, that were whitewashed by Robert of Lindsey? ‘Retrochoir’ is not a medieval term, but ‘retro’ is generally understood as signifying behind, that is to the east, of the choir.

It is excellent to have this material gathered into a single volume, and vastly more helpful than finding it effectively buried in a series of separate, specialist reports. MOLA and the editors are to be commended for their patience and good sense in bringing it together and producing such a high-quality volume.