< Back A Print version can be downloaded HERE Previous Next

Burghley House Tea Ware BACK CLICK ON THE IMAGE TO SEE IN FULL Burghley House Tea Ware Tourism is not a modern phenomenon and neither is the collecting of holiday knickknacks. Guide books printed in 1797 and 1815 to Burghley House and subsequent guides have been on sale to this day. Victorian china tea ware fairings were produced with images of Burghley House, mostly by German manufacturers, of a poor standard and for show only! These items date from between 1891 and 1914. DOWLOAD PDF Previous Next

< Back Essendine to Ryhall Single Railway Ticket Dated March 28th 1959 Submitted by Chris Hunt. Right up to the closure of the Stamford to Essendine Railway line in 1959 the station at Essendine was still using pre Nationalisation tickets, in this example a pre-war L.N.E.R. ticket. A printed version can be downloaded HERE Previous Next

< Back Fire at the Star Tea Company Shop on the High Street in 1904 On Monday afternoon as an assistant at the Star Tea Company shop in High Street, was clearing the window, preparatory to re-dressing it, when he noticed an escape of gas. Another assistant brought a light to ascertain where the leakage was, and immediately there was an outburst of flame which set fire to the ceiling. Fortunately, this was quickly subdued by means of wet sack, prior to the arrival of the hose cart from the fire station, but damage was done to the extent of about £5. Source Stamford Mercury (Friday) November 18th 1904 p4/c2 Note: - In 1904 The Star Tea Company shop was at No. 12 High Street. Originally a 16 th or early 17 th century building with 18 th century bay windows, the building was split into two shops (No. 11 and No. 12 High Street). The building (No 11 and No. 12) was completely re-built in 1982 for the Halifax Building Society and the presently (June 2025) empty premise would not be included in the RCHM volume. A Print version can be downloaded HERE Previous Next

< Back My School-Days in Stamford by EDITH NESBIT [The article below was written by Edith Nesbit and is part of her memoirs entitled My School-Days which was serialised between October 1896 and September 1897 in The Girl’s Own Paper . It has been suggested that the period in question was between the autumn of 1866 and the spring/summer of 1867. Nesbit was most famous for her children’s novel, The Railway Children (1906), and the subsequent award-winning film of the same name. This memoir gives us a picture of a dame school in Stamford from the viewpoint of an eight-year-old schoolgirl, albeit written in her late thirties. And, of course, her opinion that she never ‘wished to see Stamford again’. (Chris Hunt).] I spent a year in the select boarding establishment for young ladies and gentlemen at Stamford, and I venture to think that I should have preferred a penal settlement. Miss Fairfield, whose school it was, was tall and pale and dark, and I thought her as good and beautiful as an angel. I don't know now whether she was really beautiful, but I know she was good. And her mother, dear soul, had a sympathy with small folly in disgrace, which has written her name in gold letters on my heart. But there was another person in the house, whose name I will not put down. She came continually between me and my adored Miss Fairfield. She had a sort of influence over me which made it impossible for me ever to do anything well while she was near me. Miss Fairfield's health compelled her to leave much to Miss ----, and I was, in consequence, as gloomy a cynic as any child of my age in Lincolnshire. My chief troubles were three, my hair, my bands, and my arithmetic. My hair was never tidy, I don't know why. Perhaps it runs in the family for my little daughter's head is just as rough as mine used to be. This got me into continual disgrace. I am sure I tried hard enough to keep it tidy. I brushed it for fruitless hours till my little head was so sore that it hurt me to put my hat on. But it never would look smooth and shiny, like Katie Martin's, nor would it curl prettily like the red locks of Cissy Thomas. It was always a rough, impossible brown mop. I got into a terrible scrape for trying to soften it by an invention of my own. As we all know, Burghley House is by Stamford Town, and in Burghley Park we children took our daily constitutional. We played under the big oaks there, and were bored to extinction, not because we disliked the park, but because we went there every day at the same hour. Now Harry Martin, he wore striped stockings and was always losing his handkerchief and suffered from his hair almost as much as I did. So when I unfolded my plan to him one day in the park, he joyfully agreed to help me. We each gathered a pocketful of acorns, and when we went to wash our hands before dinner, we cut up some of the acorns into little bits, and put them into the doll's bath with some cold water and a little scent that Cissy Thomas gave us, out of a bottle she had bought for twopence at the fair at home. "This," I said, "will be acorn oil, scented acorn oil." "Will it?" said Harry doubtfully. "Yes," I replied, adding confidently, "and there is nothing better for the hair." But we never had a chance of even seeing whether acorns and water would turn to oil, a miracle which I entirely believed in. The dinner-bell rang, and I only had time hastily to conceal the doll's bath at the back of the cupboard where Miss ----- kept her dresses. That was Saturday. Next day we found that Miss ----'s best dress (the blue silk with the Bismarck brown gimp) had slipped from its peg and fallen on to the doll's bath. The dress was ruined, and when Harry Martin and I owned up, as in honour bound. Miss Fairfield was away in London and so we were deprived of dinner, and had a long Psalm to learn. I don't know whether punishment affects the hair, but I thought, next morning at prayers, that Harry's tow-crop looked more like hay than ever. My hands were more compromising to me than anyone would have believed who had ever seen their size, for, in the winter especially, they were never clean. I can see now the little willow-patterned basin of hard cold water, and smell the unpleasant little square of mottled soap with which I was expected to wash them. I don't know how the others managed, but for me the result was always the same. Failure; and when I presented myself at breakfast, trying to hide my red and grubby little paws in my pinafore, Miss ---- used to say: "Show your hands, Daisy, yes, as I thought. Not fit to sit down with young ladies and gentlemen. Breakfast in the schoolroom for Miss Daisy." Then little Miss Daisy would shiveringly betake herself to the cold bare schoolroom, where the fire had but just been kindled. I used to sit cowering over the damp sticks with my white mug, mauve spotted it was I remember, and had a brown crack near the handle. Sometimes I used to pull a twig from the fire, harpoon my bread-and-butter with it, and hold it to the fire: the warm, pale, greasy result I called toast. All this happened when Miss Fairfield was laid up with bronchitis. It was at that time, too, that my battle with compound long division began. Now I was not, I think, a very dull child, and always had an indignant sense that I could do sums well enough if any one would tell me what they meant. But no one did, and day after day the long division sums, hopelessly wrong, disfigured my slate, and were washed off with my tears. Day after day I was sent to bed, my dinner was knocked off, or my breakfast, or my tea. I should literally have starved, I do believe, but for dear Mrs. Fairfield. She kept my little Body going with illicit cakes and plums and the like, and fed my starving little heart with surreptitious kisses and kind words. She would lie in wait for me as I passed down the hall, and in a whisper call me into the store closet. It had a mingled and delicious smell of pickles and tea and oranges and jam, and the one taper Mrs. Fairfield carried only lighted dimly the delightful mystery of its well-filled shelves. Mrs. Fairfield used to give me a great lump of cake or a broad slice of bread and jam, and lock me into the dark cupboard till it was eaten. I never taste black-currant jam now without a strong memory of the dark hole of happiness, where I used to wait, my sticky fingers held well away from my pinafore till Mrs. Fairfield's heavy step and jingling keys came to release me. Then she would sponge my hands and face and send me away clean, replete, and with a better heart for the eternal conflict with long division. I fancy that when Miss Fairfield came downstairs again she changed the field of my arithmetical studies; for during the spring I seem to remember a blessed respite from my troubles. It is true that Miss ---- was away, staying with friends. I was very popular at school that term I remember, for I had learned to make dolls bedsteads out of match-boxes during the holidays, and my eldest sister's Christmas present provided me with magnificent hangings for the same. Imagine a vivid green silk sash, with brilliant butterflies embroidered all over it in coloured silk and gold thread. A long sash, too, from which one could well spare a few inches at a time for upholstery. I acquired many marbles, and much gingerbread, and totally eclipsed Cissy Thomas who had enjoyed the fleeting sunshine of popular favour on the insecure basis of paper dolls. Over my memory of this term no long division cast its hateful shade, and the scolding my dear mother gave me when she saw my sashes' fair proportions docked to a waistband and a hard knot, with two brief and irregular ends, was so gentle that I endured it with fortitude, and considered my ten weeks of popularity cheaply bought. I went back to school in high spirits with a new set of sashes and some magnificent pieces of silk and lace from my mother's lavendered wardrobe. But no one wanted dolls' beds any more; and Cissy Thomas had brought back a herbarium: the others all became botanists, and I, after a faint effort to emulate their successes, fell back on my garden. The seeds I had set in the spring had had a rest during the Easter holidays, and were already sprouting greenly, but alas, I never saw them flower. Long division set in again. Again, day after day, I sat lonely in the schoolroom, now like a furnace and ate my dry bread and milk and water in the depths of disgrace, with the faux commencements and those revolting sums staring at me from my tear-blotted slate. Night after night I cried myself to sleep in my bed, whose coarse home-spun sheets were hotter than blankets. All because I could not get the answers right. Even Miss Fairfield, I fancied, began to look coldly on me, and the other children naturally did not care to associate with one so deficient in arithmetic. One evening as I was sitting as usual sucking the smooth, dark slate pencil, and grieving over my troubles with the heart-broken misery of a child, to whom the present grief looks eternal, I heard a carriage drive up to the door. Our schoolroom was at the back, and I was too much interested in a visitor, especially one who came at that hour and in a carriage, to be able to bear the suspense of that silent schoolroom, so I cautiously opened its door and crept on hands and knees across the passage and looked down through the bannisters. They were opening the door. It was a lady, and Mrs. Fairfield came out of the dining-room to meet her. It was a lady in a black moiré (type of textile) antique dress and Paisley shawl of the then mode. It was a lady whose face I could not see, because her back was to the red sunset light; but at that moment she spoke, and the next I was clinging round the moue skirts with my head buried in the Paisley shawl. The world, all upside down, had suddenly righted itself. I, who had faced it alone, now looked out at it from the secure shelter of this screen. For my mother had come to see me. I did not cry myself to sleep that night, because my head lay on her arm. But even then I could not express how wretched I had been. Only when I heard that my mother was going to the South of France with my sisters, I clung about her neck, and with such insistence implored her not to leave me and not to go without me. I think I must have expressed my trouble without uttering it, for when, after three delicious days of drives and walks, in which I had always a loving hand to hold, my mother left Stamford, and she took me, trembling with joy like a prisoner reprieved. And I have never seen, or wished to see Stamford again. EDITH NESBIT A print version can be downloaded HERE Previous Next

< Back Hearth Tax Return for St Martin's, Stamford - 31st July 1663 Professor Alan Roger THE HEARTH TAX RETURN FOR THE LIBERTY OF NASSABURGH, FOR 31st JULY, 1663 [Stamford St Martin's section only in this extract] note by Tim Halliday of Peterborough. Stamford Survey Group wish to thank him for permission to reproduce the Stamford section of these returns. INTRODUCTORY NOTE This is the earliest hearth tax return surviving for any part of Northamptonshire and is now to be found in the Public Record Office under reference PRO/E179/254/12. The date of the Return is a little misleading in that the regnal year is stated on the first membrane to be 4 Charles II, whereas it was made in the fourth year of the King's return to England, namely 1663, being more correctly 12 Charles II. The manuscript consists of twelve rotulets stitched together at the head and the title given above is intended literally, since it covers the whole of Nassaburgh but no other hundreds of Northamptonshire. The manuscript is in very good condition throughout. The Return is divided into separate sections for each ward of the City of Peterborough and each vill or hamlet outside the urban area of the City. At the end of each such section, the manuscript provides a total, which refers to the number of hearths therein. The totals of entries provided in italics at the end of each section have been added to the transcript so as to show the number of buildings assessed in each such ward, vill or hamlet. The entries for Peterborough and its hamlets, including Eye, are grouped together in an orderly manner, then Paston and its hamlets, followed by Glinton and Peakirk (which two ecclesiastical parishes form one manor) but thereafter the entries follow an itinerary passing backwards and forwards across the northern part of the Liberty, hamlets often appearing before their mother villages or quite apart from them, before the itinerary reaches Stamford St Martin's, after which it progresses south through the western parishes to Wansford, then east through the hamlets of Castor before terminating with Castor itself. T M H, 1986 [ Mem 10] St.Martin's Stamford Baron Fyer Harths A print version can be downloaded HERE Previous Next

< Back W H Smith & Sons opens Book & Newspaper stall at Stamford Midland Railway Station and a Stand at the Great Northern Station in 1885 A book and newspaper stall has been opened at the Midland Railway station, Stamford, by Messrs W.H.Smith and Son, and a stand for the sale of newspapers and periodicals only is to be set up by the same firm at the Great Northern station. Source Stamford Mercury (Friday) August 28 th 1885 p4, c2 Note: - W.H.Smith’s didn’t have a shop on the High Street until the 1930’s when they took over premises of C. Haynes, Stationer and Fancy Repository. A print version can be downloaded HERE Previous Next

< Back LULU and the LUVVERS play the LANSBURY CLUB in STAMFORD on JULY 18th 1964 On the evening of Saturday July 18 th 1964 Lulu and her backing group the Luvvers played the Lansbury Club (later the Newage Club) on Wharf Road in Stamford. Very much described as a Glasgow band fronted by the sixteen-year-old Scottish singer Lulu, they took Stamford by storm. It was one of the largest crowds every witnessed at the Club with fans flocking to the town from miles around. One party of fans even went to the trouble of hiring a bus from Grantham. Hot from the success of the hit single, Shout, Lulu sang a full one-hour set, managing even to stop the dancing. Probably the club was too packed for people to move. She was described as having a sparkling personality, along with a chirpy little voice, and was wearing beige tight-fitting knickerbockers and a similar coloured top. All in all, it was a great night. Especially for Charles (Chas) Thompson, the doorkeeper, when Lulu sang Shout again as a special birthday treat. Lulu without tight-fitting knickerbockers and a similar coloured top Chris Hunt September 2025 A print version can be downloaded HERE Previous Next

< Back Roasted Grain Advert – Better Than Coffee - Sold in Stamford 1822 An Act of Parliament having been passed to legalise and promote the sale of the above article, and to encourage its use, the public are respectfully informed that PREPARED ROASTED ENGLISH GRAIN, making, when ground or broken. Hunt’s Vegetable Breakfast Powder, is now on sale at J. DRAKARD’s News-office, Stamford, at one shilling per lb. In pounds, half pounds and quarter pounds. It only requires one trial to convince those who use it, that this invigorating beverage is as grateful to the palate as it is salubrious and economical. One pound of the Roasted Grain, will go as far as one pound and a half of coffee, and it possesses ten times the nourishment without partaking of the heating and deleterious qualities of that berry. Sold wholesale at the manufactory, Broad-wall, Blackfriars-road, London; and all orders supplied, on the same terms, by application to J. Drakard, agent for the counties of Lincoln, Rutland, Huntingdon, Cambridge and Northampton, to whom persons in those counties wishing to become agents for the sale of this excellent, cheap, and nutritious beverages are requested to apply. Source. DRAKARD’S STAMFORD NEWS (FRIDAY) SEPTEMBER 20TH 1822 p1/c1 Note John Drakard is best known as the editor of Drakard’s Stamford News and the publisher of Drakard’s History of Stamford (1822) and other radical publications. He supported the radical cause and was also a thorn in the side of the Cecil family and against the Burghley interest in the town. It probably therefore should not be a surprise that Drakard sold Hunt’s Vegetable Breakfast Powder, a breakfast drink, made by a firm created by Henry Hunt, a radical orator, who had been arrested at Peterloo in 1819 and believed in parliamentary reform and the repeal of the Corn Laws. A printed copy can be downloaded HERE Previous Next

Parish & Sons - Tie Press BACK CLICK ON THE IMAGE TO SEE IN FULL Parish & Sons - Tie Press In the late 1800s Thomas Parrish ran a Tailor and Outfitter’s business from 63 High Street. He had three sons and a daughter and during the 20th century the firm expanded with a Ladies, Children’s and Household Linen department at 10 High Street and a Furniture department was opened at 45 Broad Street. DOWLOAD PDF Previous Next

< Back New Footbridge over the River Welland 1863 Submitted by Chris Hunt The new footbridge across the River Welland, leading from Terra-cotta Lane to the Water Street railway station, was formally opened on Saturday last by Alderman Octavius N. Simpson, chairman of the committee, and attended by the Mayor and other members of the committee. The structure will be found exceedingly convenient to the residents of the eastern half of Stamford, more especially to those residing in St George’s parish. It has a very pretty appearance as viewed from the town bridge, and is quite an ornament to the part of the river which it spans. The structure consists of two stone abutments and one arch of 80 feet span, with a roadway of 6 feet wide, which is carried on Mallet’s buckled plates overlaid with asphalt. The main portion of the bridge is of rolled angle tee and plate iron, cast iron is only used in the bed plates and parapets, and the whole is put together with more than 8,000 rivets, and contains about 7 tons of iron. The stonework has been carried out by Messrs. Roberts, the ironwork by Mr. Cliffe, and the asphalt has been laid by Mr. Reedman, the whole having been done according to the plans and under the superintendence of Mr. Wright, Civil Engineer, Stamford whose plans it will be remembered were selected in competition out of 17 others. The total cost from first to last, including professional charges, will not exceed £400. Source STAMFORD MERCURY (FRIDAY) JULY 10TH 1863 p4/c3 Note. This footbridge was swept away by the floods of July 1880 and was replaced with the present Albert Bridge. Terra-cotta Lane was renamed Albert Road after Prince Albert, consort to Queen Victoria, who died in 1861. The railway station mentioned above is of course the old Stamford and Essendine Railway station whose main building and goods shed still stand at the east end of Water Street. A print version can be downloaded HERE Previous Next

< Back The Night of the Coventry Blitz - 1940 On the night of November 14th and into the morning of November 15th 1940, squadrons of German planes flew over Stamford on their way to bomb Coventry. That night, as on many others, fire watchers were readying in cities, towns and villages for the ever-expected arrival of the War to their communities. In Stamford, fourteen-year-old Eric Hunt, too young for the Army or the Home Guard, was on duty as a fire watcher at the top of Lowe, Son, and Cobbold’s brew house on North Street, wondering who was getting bombed tonight. Memories of Eric Hunt. A printed copy can be downloaded HERE Previous Next