Stamford, United Kingdom

A Norman castle was built about 1075 and apparently demolished in 1484. The site stood derelict until the late 20th 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.

In 1333, a group of students and tutors from the University of Oxford, including some from Merton College and Brasenose Hall, dissatisfied with conditions at the university, left Oxford to found a rival institution at Stamford. Oxford had seen violence between students and masters hailing from Northern and Southern England, and those who left for Stamford were Northerners. Oxford and Cambridge universities petitioned Edward III, and the King ordered the closure of the college and the return of the students to Oxford; this took several attempts, but seems to have finally been achieved in 1335. MA students at Oxford until 1827 were obliged to take an oath: "You shall also swear that you will not read lectures, or hear them read, at Stamford, as in a University study, or college general." The site and limited remains of the former Brazenose College, Stamford, where Oxford secessionists lived and studied, now form part of Stamford School.

Stamford has been hosting an annual fair since the Middle Ages. It is mentioned in Shakespeare's Henry IV, Part 2 (Act 3, Scene 2). Held in mid-Lent, it is now the largest street fair in Lincolnshire and among the largest in the country. On 7 March 1190, men at the fair who were preparing to go on the crusade led a pogrom, in which several of the Stamford Jews were killed, and the rest, who escaped with difficulty, were given refuge in the castle. Their houses, however, were plundered, and a great quantity of money was seized.

Stamford's importance and wealth in the Middle Ages meant that a number of religious houses and hospitals were established in or near the town. The monasteries and friaries had all been closed at the Dissolution by 1539. Street names are indicative of their presence: Priory Road, Austin Street, Blackfriars Street etc.

Benedictine Priory of St Leonard – certainly established by 1082 with the possibility of it having been founded originally in the 7th century. Part of the church still stands on Priory Road.

Priory of Austin Canons at Newstead, just east of Stamford. Originally founded as a hospital at the end of the 12th century it became a priory of Austin Canons in the 1240s.

Priory of St Michael – this was a nunnery established by an abbot of Peterborough in or before 1155 in Stamford Baron. It was a large establishment for about 40 nuns. In 1354 it was amalgamated with the Augustinian nunnery of Wothorpe which had been depopulated by plague. The reredorter is a Scheduled Monument.

At least five orders of friars were established within the town of Stamford from the 13th century onwards.

The Austin Friars established in the 1340s in a house near St Peter's Gate on land formerly occupied by the Friars of the Sack. After the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1539 the land was eventually bought by the Cecil family of Burghley.

The Dominican Friars probably arrived in the 1230s and were regularly supported with donations by the monarchy. The house was dissolved by 1539.

The Franciscan Friars had a house - Greyfriars, Stamford - in the east suburb near St Paul's gate.

The Carmelite Friars were founded about 1268 in the east part of the town. The friary is said to have been a magnificent structure, famous for its beautiful church.

The Friars of the Sack or Brothers of Penitence – the sack referred to their clothes, made of sackcloth.

Hospital of St John Baptist and St Thomas the Martyr on Stamford Bridge. This hospital was certainly in existence from 1323 until the eve of the Reformation.

The Hospital of St Giles was built just outside Stamford as it was intended for lepers and was certainly operating in the 14th century.

Hospital of All Saints was founded in 1485 by William Browne, a wool merchant, for the support of two chaplains and for the distribution of alms to twelve poor persons, who should pray for the soul of the founder. Browne's Hospital is still used for this purpose.

By the early 1500s the wool and broadcloth industry in England, on which Stamford depended, had declined significantly. Stamford was sufficiently poor, financially and demographically, that in 1548 it had to amalgamate its eleven parishes into six and its population had reduced to 800.