AN ERST UNIVERSITY TOWN neglected by the tourist, and the few who do find their way thither appear to come attracted solely by the fame of Burleigh House, one of the "show" mansions of the country, merely treating old-world Stamford, with all its wealth of antiquarian and archæological interest, as a point of departure and arrival. For Stamford—whose name is derived we were told from "Stone-ford," as that of Oxford is from "Ox-ford" over the Isis—was erst a university town of renown whose splendid colleges rivalled both those of Oxford and Cambridge, and even at one period threatened to supersede them, and probably would have done so but for powerful and interested political intrigues. Of these ancient colleges there are some small but interesting remains. Spenser in his Faerie Queene thus alludes to the town:—
Stamford, though now homely hid,
Then shone in learning more than ever did
Cambridge or Oxford, England's goodly beams.
But besides the remains of its ancient colleges, Stamford possesses several fine old churches of exceptional interest, a number of quaint old hospitals, or "callises" as they are locally called—a term derived, we were informed by a Stamford antiquary we met by chance, from the famous wool merchants of "the Staple of Calais" who first founded them here—the important ruins of St. Leonard's Priory, crumbling old gateways, bits of Norman arches, countless ancient houses of varied character, and quaint odds and ends of architecture scattered about.
