Tourist attractions Stamford

One of the finest Elizabethan manors, built by William Cecil, Lord Burghley, "the greatest, gravest and most esteemed Councillor that ever your Majesty had", as Essex confided to Elizabeth I. The extensive 17C redecoration includes the pain..

Rutland Water is one of Britain's biggest man-made lakes (1,254ha) and was created in 1970 to supply several towns. Cycling and walking trails follow its shores and the Anglian Water Birdwatching Centre provides hides for viewing the wildlife. On t..

Peterborough and Ely were the two great monasteries on the Fens. The Saxon monastery built before the Norman conquest in around 655 was destroyed by the Danes in 870. A second Saxon church, built in the 10C as a Benedictine abbey, was destroyed by fi..

Built in around 1475, Brownes hospital had cubicles for "10 poor men" in what is now the Board Room. The chapel and audit room are both lit by memorable stained-glass windows dating from c 1480.

Rebuilt in around 1480, St Martin's is built entirely in Perpendicular style. The north chapel is dominated by an imposing alabaster monument to William Cecil, Lord Burghley (1520-1598).

These charming late-Elizabethan almshouses were built on the site of the medieval hospital of St John the Baptist and St Thomas the Martyr in 1597.

Steam locomotives puff along the Nene Valley and through a long tunnel. The carriages are fitted out with wooden fascia and the smoke billows over the flat landscape as in times gone by. The museum at Wansford displays one carriage with railway mem..

The castle now consists only of a great hall, once part of a fortified manor house built in the 12C for Walkelin de Ferrers. Inside the hall, which is one of the country's best examples of domestic Norman architecture, over 200 horseshoes of all size..

The story of Stamford embraces its Saxon origins up to its starring role in a BBC television serial, Middlemarch , an adaptation of the novel of the same name by George Eliot. In a more macabre vein are the life-sized wax models of Daniel Lambert, t..

The 14C gate, which was rebuilt here c 1688, was originally part of Brazenose College, no longer standing, established in 1333 by students seceding from Brazenose College in Oxford.

Ancestral home of the Brudenell family, whose famous son was at the head of the Charge of the Light Brigade in 1854. The house dates back to the 16-17C. Situated around a central courtyard, it was enlarged in the 18 and 19C. The largest part is the g..

Kirby Hall is a fine example of an Elizabethan building that was begun in 1570 and renovated in the 17C. Bought and completed by Sir Christopher Hatton, favourite of Elizabeth I, in 1575, this vast manor was enlarged and became one of the most luxuri..