The most beautiful stone town in England
by Rex Needle
My love affair with Stamford started half a century ago when as a young reporter in Peterborough, I would arrive with my colleagues by bus for a rendezvous with our friends on the Stamford Mercury to hold a monthly meeting of the local branch of the National Union of Journalists. This was always preceded by cream teas at the Central Café in Red Lion Square and after our official deliberations, we would walk round to St Mary’s Vaults, one of the towns historic taverns, for a glass or two of beer before catching the bus back home. I was enchanted by the stone buildings, the old churches, quaint and narrow cobbled streets and connecting passageways down which we walked and wondered about times past and although my career later took me to other distant places, I knew that I would be back.Ten years later, we rented a cottage for two years at Belmesthorpe, a village two miles north east of Stamford, and so I was able to study the town in greater detail and as I was by then running a news agency for the area from Peterborough, it was inevitable that we would open a Stamford branch and I leased shop premises in the High Street for this purpose, now occupied by the Sugar Bowl restaurant. Our son Justin was born at the Stamford and Rutland Hospital in March 1967 and later attended Stamford School before going on to Cambridge, and so our knowledge of the locality increased and now in retirement, we shop in Stamford and visit regularly and although we live in Bourne, 12 miles away, my credentials as an honorary Stamfordian are almost complete.
Stamford has the reputation as the most beautiful town in England, richly fashioned from mellowed stone, as indeed it was 300 years ago because in 1697, the traveller Celia Fiennes described it “as fine a built town all of stone as maybe seen” and there are few who would disagree today. In Danish times, Stamford was the selected capital of the fens and one of the Five Boroughs of the Danelaw. Its charter was granted by Henry III in 1254 with the start of ecclesiastical building and although much damage was done during the Wars of the Roses in the 15th century, present-day Stamford gradually began to emerge.
Its appearance has remained relatively unspoilt, mainly as a result of the work by successive local people of vision and influence who sat on councils and other associated organisations and resisted attempts to demolish and alter its historic buildings. It therefore remains a jewel in our country’s architectural landscape with more than 800 buildings listed as being of historic or architectural importance, most of them within the mediaeval pattern of the old walled town that remains essentially the same oval area of 1,000 yards by 400 yards. In 1967, this work brought Stamford its just reward because it won the unique distinction of being named as the first town in Britain to become a conservation area under the Civic Administration Act and now attracts thousands of tourists annually, both from home and abroad, as well as a succession of film and television crews who use it as a location for a variety of drama productions that are screened worldwide.
A castle was built here by William the Conqueror in Norman times but the mound on which it stood was levelled in 1935 to make way for a car park which is now the town’s bus station but three 13th century blank arches remain on the riverbank together with some walling. A postern gate from the old town walls still stands in Bath Row and one bastion or tower in West Street. During 1333-34, a group of students and tutors from Merton and Brasenose Colleges, Oxford, who were dissatisfied with conditions at their university, migrated to Stamford but this breakaway university was short-lived and ordered to return by Edward III and only the gateway of the new Brasenose College still exists in St Paul’s Street with a replica of the Brasenose knocker, the original being removed to Oxford in 1890.
The educational influence remains, mainly through the existence of Stamford School that has created a town and gown atmosphere similar to Cambridge. This is a public school for boys, founded in 1532 and occupying 30 acres to the north east of the town. The oldest building is the chapel, which was originally part of St Paul’s Church, built in the 12th century. Many former pupils have made their mark in life, most notably Sir Malcolm Sargent, the conductor, Michael Tippett, the composer and the writer Colin Dexter, author of the Inspector Morse series dramatised by television.
I have introduced many people to this town, guiding them through the streets to show them some of the interesting buildings and then taking them to afternoon tea at the George Hotel, itself a monument to antiquity because there has been a hostelry on this site for 1,000 years and its history since then is one of a place frequented by royalty and nobility with forty coaches a day stopping here during the 17th and 18th centuries on their journey from London to York.
But I have a favourite time to visit Stamford and that is when I have it all to myself, early on a sunny Sunday morning in summer, perhaps even at 6 a m, when the town is still slumbering and the tourists are too tired from the previous night’s revels to venture out at such an hour. This is the time to walk the streets to seek out the many examples of sustained architectural dignity that can be found all around and to follow in the footsteps of those who lived here before and at this time of day, you will catch Stamford in all of its beauty and old world charm. It has many ancient churches, Queen Anne houses and Georgian mansions, with vaulted crypts and stone-tiled roofs to mark the ages in between. Groups of almshouses known as callises were founded all about the town by rich wool merchants who traded with France through Calais and one of these old people’s hospitals is the row of almshouses near the stone bridge over the River Welland which were built by Lord Burghley in 1597.
One of the finest and best-preserved buildings is Browne’s Hospital in Broad Street, a superb foundation endowed in 1480 for ten poor men and two women by a rich and influential wool merchant William Browne and called the Hospital of All Saints. He and his family worshipped here and their memorial brasses can be found on the walls. A Tudor screen in excellent condition remains in the little chapel that was consecrated in 1494 and there is much stained glass of considerable beauty while the hospital’s audit room contains a magnificent 16th century refectory table and distinguished carved bench ends. The hospital is still in public use today and contains several flats for old people.
Mediaeval Stamford was known throughout Europe as a centre for religious learning and many of its monastic buildings remain. St Leonard’s Priory, a Benedictine monastery founded between 1080 and 1140, was among the earliest of these buildings and can still be seen on the outskirts of the town although its potential as a tourist attraction has not been exploited in recent years, perhaps because of its remote location but it is still worth a visit.
Stamford also has a particularly fine collection of churches, more than any other town of its size, and their towers and spires pierce the skyline as you approach from the south. St Mary’s Church which occupies a prominent position on St Mary’s Hill is built around a 13th century tower with a 163 foot high spire that was added a century later. Most of the nave was rebuilt in the 15th century, as was the notable Chapel of the Golden Choir, so called because of the stars of gold studding the beautiful painted roof where each frames a laughing or grotesque face.
Among the other churches of architectural interest is All Saints, which dominates Red Lion Square. Its great tower and spire are perpendicular in style while most of the work inside dates from the 13th century. St George’s, smaller and more intimate than the others, the late 15th century St John’s and St Martin’s are also most interesting buildings and the latter contains a magnificent renaissance monument to William Cecil, the first Lord Burghley, the illustrious English statesman and trusted chief adviser to Queen Elizabeth I, who lived at Burghley House, the grand country mansion he built on the outskirts of Stamford. He died in 1598 and his effigy lies upon a table tomb in armour and garter robes and the staff of office in his hands.
Outside in the churchyard is the grave of Daniel Lambert who achieved fame for a very different reason as England’s fattest man. When he died in 1809 at the age of 39, he was 5 ft 11 in tall with a 92-inch waist and weighed almost 53 stones. Some of his clothing survives and is on display at the Stamford Museum in Broad Street while an oil painting of him hangs in the foyer of the George Hotel.
One of the most unusual churches is St Michael’s which stands in the High Street pedestrian precinct surrounded by shops but then that is exactly what this building is now. There is evidence of a church on this spot in 1158 and the subsequent mediaeval building survived until 1832 but while repairs were being carried out it collapsed and the present church was erected a few years later. In 1970, it was closed due to the movement of population away from the town centre and after several years of controversy, the church was sold for redevelopment and has been converted for use as retail premises although the old graveyard nearby has been turned into an open space with public seats.
The refurbished church is one of the most distinctive buildings in the High Street, now pedestrianised with yellow block paving and allowing shoppers to move around freely without the restrictions of traffic. Across the road is a handsome building erected in 1804 and once used as a meat market but has been the public library since 1906. It now looks very smart and attractive in the early morning sunshine because the golden yellow stonework has recently been cleaned. This was one of the first buildings in Stamford to be designed in the classical style by William Legg, with a magnificent Tuscan portico evidently influenced by Inigo Jones’ Covent Garden Church in London and it is therefore appropriate that a flower seller regular sets up stall on the steps as though she were preparing for a scene from My Fair Lady.
The town’s Georgian buildings are an absolute delight including the Town Hall from 1777 and the old theatre in St Mary’s Street, dating back to 1768, where Edmund Keane, Sheridan and other famous thespians from the past trod the boards, but restored in 1976 for modern day performances and so it remains one of the few 18th century theatres in Britain still serving its original purpose. Nearby is the sombre, colonnaded Stamford Hotel dating from 1829 with the Statue of Justice by J C F Rossi, R A at its summit and possessing one of the longest Regency frontages in the county, but now converted into shops while No 40 St Martin’s Street dates back to 1500 and is reputed to be the oldest house in the town.
On a warm sunny day, there is no better place to stroll than along the Meadows on the banks of the River Welland that runs through the town. Here during the summer months, you will find that hundreds arrive to walk and sit and eat their lunches and to look back at Stamford’s mellow limestone and to ponder on its history because this was the only point in times past that the river could be crossed for most of the year with the flood plain enlarging rapidly on either side of the town. There are traces of man here before the Roman Conquest, including Neolithic finds in local quarries, and tracks are known to have crossed the river at this spot in ancient British times, connecting the extensive southern settlements with those in the north of Lincolnshire. There was a ford for this purpose by which Ermine Street crossed the river, now levelled but originally known as Stane or Stone Ford from which the present day name of Stamford is derived, and it was across that Roman ford that Queen Boudicca chased the remnants of the Roman’s Ninth Legion in 61 A D. Under Saxon influence however, the site was developed further and the settlement of the ford became the town of Stamford, slowly growing in importance. The river is now crossed by a sturdy stone bridge built in 1849 when the only traffic was stagecoaches and horse-drawn transport and after being considerably weakened by heavy lorries, its has recently been strengthened.
Perhaps the most fascinating aspect of Stamford is what I call its nooks and crannies, the delights that you find down every passageway, every lane and around every corner. There is always something new to see whether taking a short cut to the river down the mysterious Old Barn Passage or perhaps in King’s Mill Lane, admiring the Graeco-Egyptian style along St Peter’s Hill, walking down the secluded Maiden Lane where a large mediaeval town house has a curious oriel window, stopping to take a closer look at the neo-classical frontage of Barn Hill House or admiring Rutland Terrace which contains a most interesting row of very attractive Georgian houses built around 1820 and facing out of the town over the Welland valley.
The museum in Broad Street is also an important call for the inquisitive for it is here that you will find so many exhibits from the town’s past, illustrating its archaeology and history, including examples of a local green glazed cream fabric pottery which was manufactured here from late Saxon times until the end of the Middle Ages, and works by the Stamford painter Wilfred Wood. There is also a brewery museum to be found in All Saints Street, occupying premises once used by the town’s last surviving brewery Melbourn Brothers who were in business until 1971 but the premises have now been extensively refitted with wood, copper and brass equipment that reflects a century or more of beer making in a town that once boasted several breweries. Market Day on Friday is also a worthwhile time to visit when Broad Street, one of the widest thoroughfares in Lincolnshire containing many early 18th century buildings, becomes a mass of stalls selling a variety of goods for this has been a market area since earliest times and it is here that you can spend hours, mingling with townspeople, listening to their gossip and picking up a few bargains because this is one of the biggest and finest street markets in England today.
Des Scholes has spent several years photographing the town he loves and the results of his work can be seen on this web site. I could not hope to compete with his eye for a good shot but I would like to contribute one photograph, which I think epitomises Stamford and that is the north side of St Paul’s Street. I waited for several months until the conditions were right to take this picture because I needed sun and shadow and a total absence of people and motor cars, a difficult set of ingredients to bring together all at the same time but I was on the streets soon after 7 a m on Saturday 5th June 1999 to capture this view that will for me, be forever Stamford. This façade of 18th century timber-framed shops must be one of the prettiest in the country and it looks just like a Christmas card scene or perhaps an illustration from the pages of Dickens.
One thing is certain for those who visit Stamford: you will most certainly return. No town, especially an old town such as this, reveals all of its interesting features at one visit and this is particularly true in Stamford.
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