Stamford Barron / St Martin

"STAMFORD BARON ST. MARTIN, a parish in the liberty of Nassaburgh, county Northampton{, half a mile S.E. of Stamford in Lincolnshire}, within which borough it is included. It is a station on the Midland Counties railway. The parish is situated on the bank of the navigable river Welland, here crossed by a bridge of five arches connecting the counties of Lincoln and Northampton. It includes, besides the large village of its own name, which may be considered a suburb of Stamford, the hamlet of Walthorpe. It appears to have been a place of considerable importance in the Saxon times, having been walled round by Edward the Elder, and made a mint town by Athelstane. It subsequently became a barony to Peterborough Abbey, and in the reign of Henry II. Abbot William de Waterville founded a nunnery as a cell to Peterborough, which at one period had 40 nuns, but at the Dissolution possessed a revenue of only £72 18s. led. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Peterborough, value £215. The church of St. Martin, which stands in the High-street, was built in the 15th century by Bishop Russel, of Lincoln, and contains monuments to the Cecil family, including the great Lord Treasurer Burleigh, whose ancient mansion, called Burleigh House, is now the seat of the Marquis of Exeter. In the churchyard is the grave of Daniel Lambert, who died in 1809, at the age of 39, when he measured 9 feet 4 inches in girth, and 3 feet 1 inch round the leg, and weighed 739 lbs. The charities produce about £510 per annum, of which £240 belong to the hospital founded in 1597 by Lord Burleigh for a warden and 12 poor brethren, and £234 to Fryer's almshouses, founded in 1722, for six poor widows. There are also two charity schools founded by Dorothy, Countess of Exeter, in 1596, one for the education of ten poor girls, and the other for a like number of boys. The poor-house for the Stamford union is situated in this parish." [From The National Gazetteer of Great Britain and Ireland (1868). Transcribed by Colin Hinson ©2003]