PETERBOROUGH SOKE 



STAMFORD BARON 



The church of St. Martin was 

 ADVOJVSON probably built by Martin de Bee, 

 abbot of Peterborough. Its advow- 

 son was made part of the endowment of the nunnery 

 of St. Michael by Abbot William Waterville,' 

 and remained with them until the dissolution of that 

 house, when it was granted to Richard Cecil.' The 

 marquis of Exeter, his descendant, is now patron. 



There was a large gild attached to this parish called 

 the gild of St. Martin. The certificate of 1389 says 

 it was ordained in ancient times to provide a chaplain 

 to celebrate in the church of St. Martin for the 

 brothers and sisters of the gild, and to keep a light 

 in the same church in the honour of St. Martin. On 

 the feast of St. Martin they had a certain bull which 

 was ' used and sold ' for the profit of the gild,' and on 

 the same day the brothers and sisters met together to 

 drink and pray for themselves and all their benefactors. 

 For the support of the chaplain and other expenses 

 certain men ' a long time before the statute of mort- 

 main ' gave rents to value of 30/., and every brother 

 and sister gave at the feast of St. Michael one bushel 

 of corn. There was an alderman and other officials 

 to collect rents and dues and make ordinances for all.* 

 In 1549 the yearly value of the gild was £6 zs. zd. 

 It was served by Thomas Pecket and houseled people 

 to the number of 400.' The land belonging to it 

 was granted to John Somers by Elizabeth ; * but it must 

 have soon been acquired from him by the Cecil family, 

 for Lord Burghley died in possession of it in 1598.' 



The church stands on the east side 

 CHURCH of the main street, on ground falling 

 towards the river, in a small and 

 narrow churchyard. The plan comprises a chancel 

 of two bays, with a north chapel of the same length 

 and a south chapel of one bay ; the north chapel, 

 which is the burying-place of the Cecils of Burghley, 

 having been widened on the north in 1865. There 

 is a nave of four bays with aisles and a western tower, 

 the aisles overlapping the tower, and a south porch. 

 On the west the tower is built up to the frontage 

 line of the street. The church is faced with wrought 

 stone throughout, but little of the facing is ancient. 

 No part of the building appears to be older than the 

 15th century, to the early part of which the tower 

 belongs. All the rest of the church belongs to the 

 end of the same century and appears to be of one 

 build. The chancel has an east window of five 

 cinquefoiled lights with tracery and a four-centred 

 head, and a south window of three cinquefoiled 

 lights with tracery and an embattled transom, 

 the lights below the transom being also cinque- 

 foiled. Below this window is a piscina under 

 a small four-centred arch and a wide shallow recess 

 with a four-centred head, which h.is served for the 

 sedilia, though its seat is now at too high a level to 

 be convenient. West of it is a blocked priest's door- 

 way of the same date. The two arcades opening to 

 the north or Burghley chapel, and the single arch to 

 the south chapel, now used as an organ chamber, are of 

 two orders with a late form of wave-moulding, the 

 outer order being continuous, while the inner has 

 slender round shafts with moulded octagonal capitals 

 and stilted bases. 



The area of the Burghley chapel was doubled by 

 the additions on the north side in 1 865, and an 

 arcade of two bays copied from that between the 

 chapel and the chancel marks the line of the former 

 north wall. At this time an entrance from the 

 churchyard was provided at the east of the new bay, 

 and the turret containing the stairs to the rood, 

 originally external, was brought partly within the area 

 of the enlarged chapel. It is capped with a conical 

 stone roof, and was entered from the east end of the 

 north aisle of the nave, but the doorway is now 

 blocked by a modern respond. 



The south chapel has east and south windows of 

 three lights with tracery, like that on the south of 

 the chancel. The sill of the east window is carried 

 down as a recess, 4 in. deep, to hold the reredos of an 

 altar, and to the north of the recess is an embattled 

 image-bracket. In the south wall is a small piscina 

 with a segmental moulded arch. 



The nave is of four bays, the details of both arcades 

 being like those in the chancel, and above the arcade 

 is a clearstory with seven three-light windows on each 

 side, having cinquefoiled lights under four-centred 

 heads. The east bay of the clearstory is blank on 

 both sides, having been occupied by the roodloft, 

 doorways to which remain on the north and south. 



The windows of the aisles are like those of the 

 south chapel ; there are five on the north and one at 

 the west in the north aisle, and four on the south and 

 one at the west in the south aisle, the blank bay in 

 the latter being taken up by the south porch, which 

 has a ribbed stone vault springing from angle corbels, 

 and on the central boss an angel holding a shield with 

 the leopards of England below a seated figure of our 

 Lady and Child. Over the vault is a chamber reached 

 by a vice from within the church. The porch has 

 inner and outer four-centred moulded arches, and 

 stone seats on the east and west. 



The tower is of a local type with flat clasping 

 buttresses at the western angles, and a west doorway, 

 above which is a three-light tracery window. The 

 details of the east arch of the tower are like those of 

 the nave, but not identical with them, and above is 

 the weathermould of a former high-pitched roof of 

 earlier date than the present nave, as its plate-level 

 would be but little higher than the springing of the 

 arches of the existing arcade. There is a vice at the 

 north-east angle, and arches to the aisles on north and 

 south, the southern of which appears to be an inser- 

 tion, while that on the north is of the same date as 

 the vice. The inference as regards the southern arch 

 would be that it was built when the nave was rebuilt, 

 and its aisles prolonged westward to overlap the tower, 

 but the position of the tower, and the fact that the 

 northern arch seems original, suggests that both arches 

 were made for a procession path round the church, as 

 often happened when the buildings came up to the 

 boundary of the churchyard. 



The upper stage of the tower has large four-light 

 windows on each face, divided by a central muUIon, 

 and a pierced quatrefoiled parapet with crocketed 

 angle pinnacles.' There is a modem stone vault in 

 the lower stage of the tower, with old springers and 

 wall-ribs. 



' See history of St. Michael's 

 ' Pat. 32 Hen. VIII, pt. vii, m. 2. 

 ^ It has often been stated there was 

 an annual Bull Running, a sport very 

 popular in Stamford, in connexion with 



this gild. The statement seems to have 

 been based on the words of this certificate, 

 which arc exactly as they are given. 



•• Cert, of Guilds (Chan.) No. 173. 



' Chant. Cert. R. 35, No. 35. 



« Pat. 6 Eliz. pt. iii. 

 ' Chan. Inq. p. m. (ser. 2), cclvii, 91. 

 8 The late Mr. R. P. Brereton has noted 

 that squinches for a spire exist. 



