Stamford Bridge, Lincolnshire (The Gatehouse Record)

In the civil parish of Stamford.
In the historic county of Lincolnshire.
Modern Authority of Lincolnshire.
1974 county of Lincolnshire.
Medieval County of Lincolnshire.

OS Map Grid Reference: TF03050696
Latitude 52.65059° Longitude -0.47816°

Stamford Bridge, Lincolnshire has been described as a certain Fortified Bridge.

There are masonry footings remains.

Description

Bridge Gate. The gate stood at the N. end of the bridge, housing the Town Hall in its upper room, and was demolished in c.1778 in order to improve access to the town.
A bridge at Stamford is mentioned in Domesday Book and a stone bridge of five arches was built over the Welland on the present site in the 12th century. By the end of the Middle Ages this bridge had a gateway at its N. end, the upper part of which was occupied as the town hall. The gate was demolished in c. 1778 when the Wansford Road Turnpike Trustees improved the road and provided a new town hall on St. Mary's Hill. (RCHME)

The present bridge over the River Welland was completed by Edward Browning in 1849, but it was built on the site of an earlier medieval bridge. A bridge was mentioned at Stamford in the Domesday Book, but it is not until the 12th century that a bridge was definately extant at this site, and a single arch has survived at the southern end where the encroachmentof the riverbank obscured and preserved this early architecture. This bridge was spanned by five arches and the surviving arch is built in 'Barnack' stone. Next to the south arch survives the substructure of the 12th century of hospital of St. John and St. Thomas. By the end of the medieval period a gate had been built at the north end of the bridge, and a town hall had been constructed above. These elements were removed by the Wansford Road Turnpike Trustees around 1778 and the town hall moved to St. Mary's Hill.
Discussions in the 1840s resulted in the decision to replace the medieval bridge. Robert Woolston was to complete a design in Norman style by Edward and Henry Browning using Bramley Hall stone by 1848. Following a series of floods and financial problemd Edward Browning took over building directly and the bridge was complete by 1849, although not opened immediately as building work continued on properties at the southern end. (PastScape)

Sources of information, references and further reading

Historic England (PastScape) Defra or Monument number(s) 904673; 506149; 347882.
County Historic Environment Record (or Sites and Monuments Record) number(s) 37181.

Books
- RCHME, 1977, 'Castle' and 'Town walls' in An Inventory of Historical Monuments: the Town of Stamford (HMSO) p. 4-5 online transcription, p. 54-55 online transcription (plan)
Periodical Articles
- Mahany, C. and Roffe, D., 1982, 'Stamford: the Development of an Anglo-Scandinavian Borough' Proceedings of the Battle Conference on Anglo-Norman Studies Vol. 5 p. 197-219 online transcription
  Phillips, C.W., 1933, The Archaeological Journal Vol. 90 plan opp p. 381 online copy
Other sources: Theses; 'grey' literature; in-house reports; unpublished works; etc.
- Bruce Watson, 2013 Sept, Gazetteer of fortified bridges (working list kindly shared with Gatehouse)

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The information on this web page may be derived from information compiled by and/or copyright of Historic England, County Historic Environment Records and other individuals and organisations. It may also contain information licensed under the Open Government Licence. All the sources given should be consulted to identify the original copyright holder and permission obtained from them before use of the information on this site for commercial purposes.
The author and compiler of Gatehouse does not receive any income from the site and funds it himself. The information within this site is provided freely for educational purposes only.

The bibliography owes much to various bibliographies produced by John Kenyon for the Council for British Archaeology, the Castle Studies Group and others.

Suggestions for finding online and/or hard copies of bibliographical sources can be seen at this link.
Minor archaeological investigations, such as watching brief reports, and some other 'grey' literature is most likely to be held by H.E.R.s but is often poorly referenced and is unlikely to be recorded here, or elsewhere, but some suggestions can be found here.

The possible site or monument is represented on maps as a point location. This is a guide only. It should be noted that OS grid references defines an area, not a point location. In practice this means the actual center of the site or monument may often, but not always, be to the North East of the point shown. Locations derived from OS grid references and from latitude longitiude may differ by a small distance.
Further information on mapping and location can be seen at this link.

Please help to make this as useful a resource as possible by contacting Gatehouse if you see errors, can add information or have suggestions for improvements in functality and design.
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