Stamford Stations
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Visit websiteThe first station in Stamford was called Town station and was built in 1848 by Sancton Wood for the Syston & Peterborough Railway. This company was a protege of the Midland Railway intended to resist incursion by the Great Northern into what the Midland considered to be its own territory. The Marquis of Exeter at Burghley House required the railway to be invisible as it passed through the grounds of his estate so immediately east of the station the railway enters a tunnel. The station itself is in the Tudor style with tower and belfry, gables and bay windows. It remains in railway use though most of the building is a bookshop.
Stamford East was built in 1856 by William Hurst. The Marquis of Exeter had initially rebuffed attempts by the Great Northern Railway to pass through Stamford with its main line, and so the railway was routed through Peterborough instead. He then had second thoughts, and himself promoted a short 6km.(4m.) branch line to the Great Northern line at Essendine. For a short time he operated it himself but gave up in 1872. Meanwhile a second branch was opened to Wansford in 1867.
To accommodate this modest little railway he had built a gorgeously extravagant Elizabethan style manor house, replete with gables, finials, perforated parapet, tall mullion windows, and a square tower with a pierced parapet. It survived as a station until 1957, whereupon it was converted into two houses.
The surviving station is in Station Road which is a turning off the A16, the Old Great North Road, near the George Hotel.
Stamford East is in Water Street on the other side of the A16 near the river.
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