Memorials of Old Lincolnshire

by Unknown

St. Mary’s Church and Hall, Stamford.

St. George’s Church exemplifies better than any other what has been said concerning the restoration of the Stamford churches after the 1461 havoc. Without this explanation a visitor would be sorely puzzled on beholding a series of nave columns, each consisting of an Early English base supporting an octagonal drum of Decorated date, above which is an Early English cylindrical section, surmounted in its turn by another octagonal portion and a cap, both of Decorated style. The church once possessed a series of windows containing representations of King Edward III. and the first Knights of the Garter, but unfortunately this glass, which would have been of inestimable value and interest at the present time, was destroyed during the Parliamentary wars.

St. Michael’s Church is quite modern (consecrated in 1836), though it occupies the site of an eleventh or twelfth century building. It contains but little of interest to the ecclesiologist.

A portion (the south aisle) of the Church of St. Paul survives, and has been used since the sixteenth century as a class-room in connection with the Grammar School. It is a curious and somewhat puzzling building, being partly of thirteenth-century date, but having on the south wall a Norman corbel-table. It also contains fragments of later date, a piscina and a small heart shrine.

So far all the churches we have been considering are on the Lincolnshire side of the river, but for the sake of completeness a word or two must be said of the Church of St. Martin in the Northamptonshire part of the town, though this is strictly outside our subject. It is mainly a fifteenth-century structure, though there are traces of the older building which is known to have existed on this site. Some of the windows contain some fine old glass which was brought here from Tattershall Church and elsewhere; but perhaps the chief interest of the church to the visitor is afforded by the series of tombs of the Cecil family, including those of the great Elizabethan statesman, Lord Burghley, and of his father and mother, as well as a very pretentious Italian marble monument commemorating John, Earl of Exeter (ob. 1700), and his wife Anne. An opportunity occurs here to correct an error which has found its way, by repeated copyings, into almost all the printed accounts of this church, to the effect that William Laud, who became Archbishop of Canterbury, was once curate of St. Martin’s, Stamford, whereas the parish which can in reality claim this distinction is Stanford (formerly known as Stanford-on-Avon), near the borders of Warwickshire. Both places being in the same county and diocese, the mistake is a not unnatural one.[90]

Before we pass from the consideration of Stamford’s architectural features, we must briefly notice another class of institutions with which the borough is exceptionally well endowed, namely, almshouses; and chief among these is Browne’s Hospital or Bedehouse, founded towards the end of the fifteenth century by that William Browne whose name has already been mentioned as the rebuilder of All Saints’ Church. He was a wealthy merchant of the Staple of Calais, born of an old Stamford family, and was himself six times Mayor of the borough. The Bedehouse is under the care of a Warden and Confrater, and accommodates ten men and two women. The residential part of the establishment was rebuilt in 1870, but the old dormitory (no longer so used), with the audit-room over it, the cloisters, and the small chapel communicating with both, and extending upwards to the full height of the building, remain as they were. The oak screen, through which the chapel is entered from the west, is an exquisite example of woodwork of the best Perpendicular Period, and the windows of the chapel and audit-room contain some very beautiful contemporary glass. The Bedehouse, moreover, possesses some fine and valuable furniture and fittings, including a very curious almsbox discovered in a wall during the 1870 restoration.

Chapel Screen, Browne’s Hospital, Stamford.

Hopkins’ Hospital, founded in 1770, contains in one of its walls a gargoyle and part of a window, the only remaining fragments of the Austinian Friary which stood close by.