RIP Peterborough: By Jove! It's the end of an era

After this week, Peterborough, 'The Daily Telegraph's diary, will be no more. What, asks Sholto Byrnes, will the archdeacons do?

Stop all the clocks. After the best part of a century, Peterborough, The Daily Telegraph's diary column, is changing its identity. From Saturday, the redesigned column will be known as London Spy, in a move that may cause some spluttering over the marmalade among the paper's more traditional readers. In fact, the name has not remained constant for all that time – it was originally London Day by Day, with the byline Peterborough – but for many the Fenlands town is even more inextricably linked with the Telegraph than W F Deedes, who worked for the column for 30 years even when in Parliament, ceasing to file paragraphs only when he was in the Cabinet.

The misconception that the diary is named after the town is one of the reasons for the change. "In the last week I've had three calls from people trying to place ads in the Peterborough Evening Telegraph," complains the column's editor, Charlie Methven. The name actually originates in the Telegraph's old Fleet Street location of Peterborough Court, but past and present editors agree the connection has proved increasingly elusive to readers. "It doesn't do what it says on the tin," says Methven.

Sarah Sands, the Telegraph's deputy editor, explains the origin of the new name. "The idea for London Spy came from an 18th-century column in a literary magazine," she says. "We felt it polishes it up a bit, makes it more glamorous."

Glamour is certainly not a concept much associated with the old Peterborough. The column veered away from the outré, possessing instead the reassuring properties of a treacle pudding. And such puddings, especially if consumed in the better St James's clubs, were often to be found on the column's menu.

This was because Peterborough was at the heart of the old Telegraph. An obituary of Sir Michael Hogg, a baronet who edited the column for much of the 1970s, captures this spirit. "In those days, the Telegraph was not really about journalism in the popularly understood sense and combined many of the characteristics of an old-fashioned prep school and a distant British embassy."

Many of its alumni, including the novelist Sebastian Faulks, the current Daily Telegraph editor, Charles Moore, Petronella Wyatt and Deedes, have gone on to greater things; indeed, many of the paper's foreign correspondents are ex-Peterborough.

When I turned up to do my first shift at Peterborough, 10 years ago, the same prep-school analogy was used to describe Quentin Letts, the column's editor then, whose Wodehousean prose made him a firm favourite with the readers. While Letts's witty turn of phrase ensured that the column was always lively, the subject matter was sometimes a little arcane – as were some of the contributors.

One member of staff, who later left journalism to become a Catholic priest, used to depart on Fridays for what were known as "tweedy weekends". On his return on Mondays, he would write up stories he had picked up at whichever ducal pile he had been staying in, and by Wednesday would be apologising profusely down the phone for repeating information that had not been meant for anyone other than those passing the port at the weekend.

Wyatt's time at Peterborough is the subject of numerous tales, some almost certainly too good to be true. One day, it is said, her mother called up to say that Petsy could not come in "because it is too windy". On another, the reason for her absence was illness. "But she's here," came the puzzled reply. "Oh, that's supposed to be Wednesday," was the explanation.

Methven views the change of name as simply reflecting the change that has taken place in content. "Historical and illustrious though the name is, the arguments for change were stronger than those for keeping it," he says. "We're not about archdeacons and clubs now. We wanted to do away with anything that made us seem slightly fusty."

For some there will be "a smidgen of regret", as Letts put it, but even rival broadsheet diarists are likely to approve of the changes at a time when showbiz celebrity columns have become all the rage. "We weren't going to become the 3pm Boys," says Methven. Quite right. And what will Telegraph diehards make of it? "I suspect the readers will keep calling it Peterborough for the next 50 years," says Letts, "by which time the name will probably have changed to something else."

The new name may pose particular problems for Methven's deputy, Guy Adams. "I would," he e-mailed his boss, "feel absurd introducing myself as Guy from London Spy." Bad luck, old chap.