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St. Mary’s Street, Stamford.

St. Paul’s Street, Stamford.

THE SIX CHURCHES

THE CALLISES

STAMFORD UNIVERSITY

Of the six churches, St. Mary’s and All Saints have spires. St. Mary’s, on a hill which slopes to the river, is a fine arcaded Early English tower with a broach spire of later date, but full of beautiful work in statue and canopy, very much resembling that at Ketton in Rutland. There are three curious round panels with interlaced work over the porch, and a rich altar tomb with very lofty canopy that commemorates Sir David Phillips and his wife. They had served Margaret Countess of Richmond, the mother of Henry VII., who resided at Collyweston close by. The body of the church is rather crowded together and not easy to view. In this respect All Saints, with its turrets, pinnacles and graceful spire, and its double belfry lights under one hood moulding as at Grantham, has the advantage. Moreover the North Road goes up past it, and the market place gives plenty of space all round it. Inside, the arcade columns are cylindrical and plain on the north, but clustered on the south side, with foliated capitals. This church is rich in brasses, chiefly of the great wool-merchant family of Browne, one of whom, William, founded a magnificent hospital and enlarged the church, and in all probability built the handsome spire; he was buried in 1489. The other churches all have square towers, that of St. John’s Church is over the last bay of the north aisle, and at the last bay of the south aisle is a porch. The whole construction is excellent, pillars tall, roof rich and windows graceful, and it once was filled with exceptionally fine stained glass. St. George’s Church, being rebuilt with fragments of other destroyed churches, shows a curious mixture of octagonal and cylindrical work in the same pillars. St. Michael’s and St. Martin’s are the other two, of which the latter is across the water in what is called Stamford Baron, it is the burial place of the Cecils and it is not far from the imposing gateway into Burghley Park. This church and park, with the splendid house designed by John Thorpe for the great William Cecil in 1565, are all in the diocese of Peterborough, and the county of Northampton. We shall have to recall the church when we speak of the beautiful windows which Lord Exeter was allowed by the Fortescue family to take from the Collegiate Church of Tattershall, and which are now in St. Martin’s, where they are extremely badly set with bands of modern glass interrupting the old. Another remnant of a church stands on the north-west of the town, St. Paul’s. This ruin was made over as early as the sixteenth century for use as a schoolroom for Radcliffe’s Grammar School. Schools, hospitals or almshouses once abounded in Stamford, where the latter are often called Callises, being the benefactions of the great wool merchants of the Staple of Calais. The chief of all these, and one which is still in use, is Browne’s Hospital, founded in 1480 by a Stamford merchant who had been six times Mayor, for a Warden, a Confrater, ten poor men, and two poor women. It had a long dormitory hall, with central passage from which the brethren’s rooms opened on either side, and, at one end, beyond a carved screen, is the chapel with tall windows, stalls and carved bench-ends, and a granite alms box. An audit room is above the hall or dormitory, with good glass, and Browne’s own house, with large gateway to admit the wool-wagons, adjoined the chapel. It was partly rebuilt with new accommodation in 1870; the cloister and hall and chapel remain as they were. One more thing must be noted. In the north-west and near the old St. Paul’s Church schoolroom is a beautiful Early English gateway, which is all that remains of Brasenose College. The history is a curious one. Violent town and gown quarrels resulting even in murders, at Oxford in 1260, had caused several students to migrate to Northampton, where Henry III. directed the mayor to give them every accommodation; but in 1266, probably for reasons connected with civil strife, the license was revoked, and, whilst many returned to Oxford, many preferred to go further, and so came to Stamford, a place known to be well supplied with halls and requisites for learning. Here they were joined in 1333 by a further body of Oxford men who were involved in a dispute between the northern and southern scholars, the former complaining that they were unjustly excluded from Merton College Fellowships. The Durham Monastery took their side and doubtless offered them shelter at their priory of St. Leonard’s, Stamford. Then, as other bodies of University seceders kept joining them, they thought seriously of setting up a University, and petitioned King Edward III. to be allowed to remain under his protection at Stamford. But the Universities petitioned against them, and the King ordered the Sheriff of Lincolnshire to turn them out, promising them redress when they were back in Oxford. Those who refused were punished by confiscation of goods and fines, and the two Universities passed Statutes imposing an oath on all freshmen that they would not read or attend lectures at Stamford. In 1292 Robert Luttrell of Irnham gave a manor and the parish church of St. Peter, near Stamford, to the priory at Sempringham, being “desirous to increase the numbers of the convent and that it might ever have scholars at Stamford studying divinity and philosophy.” This refers to Sempringham Hall, one of the earliest buildings of Stamford University.