Page:Highways and Byways in Lincolnshire.djvu/29

 CHAPTER II

STAMFORD

The North Road—Churches—Browne's Hospital—Brasenose College—Daniel Lambert—Burghley House and "The Peasant Countess."

The Great Northern line, after leaving Peterborough, enters the county at Tallington, five miles east of Stamford. Stamford is eighty-nine miles north of London, and forty miles south of Lincoln. Few towns in England are more interesting, none more picturesque. The Romans with their important station of Durobrivæ at Castor, and another still nearer at Great Casterton, had no need to occupy Stamford in force, though they doubtless guarded the ford where the Ermine Street crossed the Welland, and possibly paved the water-way, whence arose the name Stane-ford. The river here divides the counties of Lincoln and Northamptonshire, and on the north-west of the town a little bit of Rutland runs up, but over three-quarters of the town is in our county. The Saxons always considered it an important town, and as early as 664 mention is made in a charter of Wulfhere, King of Mercia, of "that part of Staunforde beyond the bridge," so the town was already on both sides of the river. Later again, in Domesday Book, the King's borough of Stamford is noticed as paying tax for the army, navy and Danegelt, also it is described as "having six wards, five in Lincolnshire and one in Hamptonshire, but all pay customs and dues alike, except the last in which the Abbot of Burgh (Peterborough) had and hath Gabell and toll."

This early bridge was no doubt a pack-horse bridge, and an arch on the west side of St. Mary's Hill still bears the name of Packhorse Arch.