“England’s most attractive town.”  – John Betjeman, poet and writer
​“When we were planning the programme we presumed we would have to film all over the country – a street here, a square there, a house somewhere else. But then our researchers came back and told us they had found this marvellous town that had everything. So I went up to Lincolnshire, took one look and knew they were right. Stamford is beautiful. Extraordinary. It’s absolutely stunning”. – Louis Marks, BBC Producer of ‘Middlemarch’, 1993 

“As fine a built town all of stone as may be seen… not very large but finer than Cambridge”.

​Celia Fiennes, an intrepid traveller, visited in 1697

For all the picture-postcard perfection of its 600 listed buildings (the 1994 BBC adaptation of Middlemarch was filmed here) or the water meadows that line the sparkling River Welland, our inaugural winning location remains a genuine and down-to- earth spot. A one-change rail route via Peterborough can see you at King’s Cross in an hour and a quarter, yet Stamford has been spared the hipster invasion – Flat caps are worn without irony here. Its pleasures tend towards the traditional.

​The Sunday Times ‘Best Places to Live 2017’

 

 

“If there is a more beautiful town in the whole of England I have yet to see it”.

​W.G. Hoskins, ‘East Midlands and the Peak’, 1951