History

The Romans built Ermine Street across what is now Burghley Park and forded the river Welland to the west of Stamford, eventually reaching Lincoln; they built a town to the north at Great Casterton on the River Gwash. In AD 61 Boudica followed the Roman 9th Legion (Legio IX Hispana) across the river. The Anglo-Saxons later chose Stamford as their main town, being on a more important river than the Gwash.
In 972 King Edgar made Stamford a borough. The Anglo-Saxons and Danes faced each other across the river.^[4] The town originally grew as a Danish settlement at the lowest point that the Welland could be crossed by ford or bridge. Stamford was the only one of the Danelaw Five Burghs ("boroughs") not to become a county town. Initially a pottery centre, producing Stamford Ware, by the Middle Ages it had become famous for its production of wool and the woollen cloth known as Stamford cloth or haberget - which "In Henry III's reign ... was well known in Venice".^[5]
Stamford was a walled town^[4] but only a very small portion of the walls now remain. Stamford became an inland port on the Great North Road, the latter superseding Ermine Street in importance. Notable buildings in the town include the mediaeval Browne's Hospital, several churches and the buildings of Stamford School, a public school founded in 1532.^[4]

A fragment of Stamford Castle

A Norman castle was built about 1075 and apparently demolished in 1484.^[4][6][7] The site stood derelict until the late twentieth century when it was built over and now includes a bus station and a modern housing development. A small part of the curtain wall survives at the junction of Castle Dyke and Bath Row.
Stamford has been hosting an annual fair since the Middle Ages. Stamford fair is mentioned in Shakespeare's Henry IV part 2 (act 3 scene 2). The mid-Lent fair is the largest street fair in Lincolnshire and one of the largest in the country. On 7 March 1190, crusaders at the fair led a pogrom; many Jews in the town were massacred.^{[citation needed]}

A jug commemorates Ann Blades - a Stamford bull runner in 1792

For over 600 years Stamford was the site of the Stamford Bull Run festival, held annually on 13 November,^[4][8] St Brice's day, until 1839. According to local tradition, the custom was started by William de Warenne, 5th Earl of Surrey, after he saw two bulls fighting in the meadow beneath his castle viewpoint. Some butchers came to part the combatants and one of the bulls ran into the town. The earl mounted his horse and rode after the animal; he enjoyed the sport so much that he gave the meadow in which the fight began to the butchers of Stamford on condition that they should provide a bull, to be run in the town every 13 November, for ever after.^[4]
Stamford Museum was in a Victorian building in Broad Street from 1980 to 2011. In June 2011 it closed because of Lincolnshire County Council budget cuts.^[9] Some of the former exhibits have been relocated to the Discover Stamford area at the town's library. ^[10]