Our next talk: Thursday, 6th March 2025 Portable Antiquities Scheme by Dr Lisa Brundle

Stamford Local History Society
Town Bridge, Stamford
By Nicholas J Sheehan
The Town Bridge spans the River Welland, connecting the ancient burhs of Stamford and Stamford Baron. The stone bridge is the only vehicle crossing over the river and it carried the Great North Road (A1) through Stamford before a by-pass was built to the west in 1960.
There may have been a bridge over the Welland since the early tenth century. Richard Butcher’s assertion that a stone bridge was erected by Alfred the Great, when he rebuilt the town after it was destroyed by the Danes, was disputed by Francis Peck and a more likely candidate is his son, Edward the Elder, when he established the settlement on the south side of the river in 918.
The mention in Domesday Book of a bridge at Stamford confirms that one existed by 1086 but it is not until the twelfth century that there was definitely a stone bridge on the present site. Constructed of Barnack stone, the medieval bridge had five arches. Possibly it was rebuilt to a similar plan several times. When finally replaced by the present structure in the mid-nineteenth century, two of the central arches were higher and of a later date than the two on the northern half and their matching arch at the south end. However, the general appearance of the bridge may have remained substantially unchanged for over 600 years. The blocked surviving twelfth century arch has a span of about 21 ft.

In 1558, alderman John Houghton built a Town Hall and gaol over the bridge gate at the north end of the Town Bridge. Lord Burghley’s Hospital was founded on the south side by William Cecil in 1597, replacing the Medieval Hospital of St John the Baptist and St Thomas the Martyr which had been there since about 1174.

Bridge Gate was demolished in 1777 when the Wansford Road Turnpike Trustees improved the road and provided a new town hall on St Mary's Hill. Even without this obstruction, the bridge’s single carriageway was described as the ‘narrowest and most dangerous nuisance between London and Edinburgh’. Able to accommodate only one carriage at a time, accidents, near misses and altercations for right of way were a frequent occurrence. Pedestrians had to retreat into triangular recesses in the parapets to avoid carts and horse-drawn vehicles.
The bridge was owned by the Marquess of Exeter, who evidently found the responsibility of maintaining it onerous as evidenced by his offer in 1834 ‘to transfer to the Corporation, or to any other persons, the right of taking toll at Stamford Bridge in return for being relieved of the obligation to repair the bridge’. Lord Exeter was also responsible for repairing the potholed road for 100yd on either side of the bridge. Deemed to be ‘an extremely bad bargain’, the offer was rebuffed.
In 1842, at the Marquess’s expense, the bridge was paved with large blocks of Aberdeen granite and a raised foot pavement of between two and four feet wide was added on each side, narrowing the carriageway further to only eight feet in width. While the upgrade may have enhanced the appearance of the bridge and the safety of pedestrians, it did nothing to improve the flow of vehicular traffic, allowing as it did for the passage of only a single carriage at a time. Condemned as ‘shamefully narrow and dangerous’ and a ‘great nuisance’, the fate of the bridge would be settled with the coming of the railway.
The proposal by the Midland Railway Company to route the Syston to Peterborough Railway through Stamford was initially strongly opposed by the Marquess. The original intention was to build a station on the north side of the Welland and to lay the track on a level with the road at the end of the Town Bridge, where trains would stop and then proceed at a speed no greater than 4mph. The Parliamentary Railway Committees stipulated that the Midland Company should commit a sum of up to £5000 towards widening the bridge, which could be paid to Lord Exeter to carry out the work himself under the supervision of the Company’s engineer and surveyor.
Eventually, the Marquess dropped his opposition to the railway, subject to the line being brought to a station on the south side of the river, where he could offer land for the purpose at upwards of £800 an acre. Faced with little choice, the Midland Company yielded to his demands, offering him £35,000 for the land in addition to £5000 to replace the Town Bridge.
When the Syston and Peterborough Railway Bill was passed in the House of Commons in 1846, the contract for building the new bridge, to a design by local architects Edward and Henry Browning, was awarded to Robert Woolston, who was to use stone from Bramley Falls near Leeds and to complete the work by summer 1848. The new bridge, in a modern style, would consist of three arches (each of 30 feet span), with a 30-foot-wide carriageway and two footways, each of four feet in width; the parapets would be plain in appearance.
To preserve access across the river throughout the duration of the work, a permanent causeway was constructed over the Meadows above the flood level and new bridges were installed at the sites of the George and Lammas bridges. A temporary footbridge was also erected from Mr Harper’s wharf to Water Street. The new roadway from St Martin’s to Sheepmarket was completed in July 1847 and demolition of the old bridge began that month. However, work was bedevilled by setbacks and progress was quickly halted by bad weather causing repeated flooding of a coffer dam, which necessitated driving fresh piles and creating a new watercourse before workmen were able to resume the task of removing the foundations of the old bridge. The delays and extra costs were financially crippling for Woolston and by March 1848 he had made a loss of £2,000 on the project. Despite negotiating a contract extension, he declared himself bankrupt the following month and Edward Browning then assumed direct control of the building operation. The bridge was eventually finished in March 1849 but its opening was postponed until 1 May pending completion of the Toll House at the north end. The final cost was about £8,000, which, after subtracting the Midland Railway Company’s contribution of £5,000, left the Marquess £3000 out of pocket.


With the opening of the new bridge, the Marquess provoked outrage by extending the scope of the pre-existing tolls to include the livestock and loaded vehicles of inhabitants and non-resident freemen of the town. The legality of this was questioned as no tolls had been taken in living memory from the townsfolk, who were believed to be exempt under the charters of Edward IV and James II. This cut no ice with the Marquess and, in the face of defiant resistance, the tolls were sometimes violently imposed. However, with increasing opposition to payment, the tolls became less attractive to potential bidders each time the lease was put up for auction. Unsuccessful in his attempts to pursue payment through the courts, the Marquess finally admitted defeat and abolished the tolls in 1868 in return for the Corporation undertaking responsibility for the maintenance and repair of the bridge. The toll house duly closed.
The Victorian bridge comprises three low arches with cutwaters and solid parapets. It partially incorporates the blocked southernmost arch of the medieval bridge, which survives next to the substructure of the twelfth-century hospital of St John and St Thomas.

After assuming responsibility for its upkeep, the Corporation erected two ornamental gas lamps, one on each side of the centre of the bridge, which were later increased to four to provide sufficient light and achieve a satisfactory appearance. In 2017 when the lights were rusted and encrusted with grime, their columns were restored and repainted and new lanterns with LED lighting were installed.

The Town Bridge has been the scene of serious flooding when the Welland has burst its banks. After a flood in 1570 damaged the north end of the bridge it was rebuilt at the expense of William Cecil. Other major floods occurred in 1641 and 1880; a plaque on the bridge records the flood line on 15 July 1880 when the river reached its highest level for two hundred years.
The crossing over the Welland is still a pinch-point for vehicles approaching the town centre from the south. Measures to reduce traffic across the Town Bridge have included the imposition of a 7.5 tonne weight limit for HGVs. Nowadays, tail-backs still build up on either side of the bridge but three-phase traffic lights impose a degree of order on the flow of conveyances.
Town Bridge is Grade II listed.
Bibliography
Mahany, Christine and Roffe, David. Stamford: The Development of an Anglo-Scandinavian Borough. Anglo-Norman Studies 5, 1983
Peck, Francis. The Antiquarian Annals of Stanford, 1727
Royal Commission on Historical Monuments England. The Town of Stamford. London: HMSO, 1977
Lincolnshire HER. Building record MLI94679 – Town Bridge, Stamford
Lincoln, Rutland and Stamford Mercury 1834-1859, 1868, 1994, 2006
Historic England. The Bridge, Stamford - 1062178
A printed version can be downloaded HERE