Stamford, Lincolnshire

Stamford is a town on the River Welland in Lincolnshire, England. It is situated in a protrusion of Lincolnshire, between Rutland to the north and west, and Cambridgeshire to the south. It borders Northamptonshire to the south-west at the only point in England where four counties meet.

The town originally grew as a Danish base, which by the Middle Ages had became famous for its production of wool and cloth (known as Stamford cloth). Stamford was a walled town, only a very small portion of the walls remain. Later still, Stamford became an inland port on the Great North Road. Notable buildings in the town include the mediaeval Browne's Hospital and the Elizabethan Burghley House. Because of the large number of surviving listed buildings, the town has been used as a set for television "period" dramatisations. Stamford is a quaint town, with street after street of timber framed and stone buildings (using the glorious luminous limestone that Lincoln Cathedral is built from), little shops tucked down back alleys, and with no traffic or street furniture it would be difficult to tell what century you were in.

Also lying near Stamford is Burghley House, a fully restored Elizabethan mansion, vast and beautifully decorative, designed by the master architect William Cecil.

Stamford was the only one of the five Danelaw boroughs not to become a county town.

Lying as it does on the main north-south route (Ermine Street the A1) from London, several Parliaments were held in Stamford in the middle ages.

The growth in church congregations in the early twenty-first century pointed up the Church of England's short sightedness in tearing down St Margaret's Church in 1582 as surplus to requirements.

Television shows made on location in Stamford

• Middlemarch (1994)

Films made on location in Stamford

• Pride and Prejudice (2004)
• Space

Famous Stamfordians

• Daniel Lambert
• Malcolm Sargent

External links

• The George Hotel a notable Stamford landmark
• Burghley House official site

• The Churches of Stamford
• Stamford Arts Centre
• Burghley House Heritage site