I visited UK's best kept secret that feels like the Cotswolds without the price

The Sun

20-06-2025

EXPLORING the cobbled streets of Stamford, I feel like I've stumbled across one of the UK's best-kept secrets.
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The town is filled with buildings made from honey-hued limestone, while gabled pubs dating back to the 1200s lean drunkenly against their neighbours.
And what it lacks in members' clubs or gaggles of celebrities, it makes up for with its charming locals, a down-to-earth tribe more interested in making last orders at the Tobie Norris pub than bagging tables at Michelin-starred restaurants.
It's at the wonderfully wonky Tobie Norris in the centre of town where I meet pint-puller Evie.
The pub's name is a nod to Tobias 'Tobie' Norris, who purchased the building in the 1600s and transformed it into a bell foundry.
Evie pulls out some photos of its past and tells me: 'From the 1950s it was the RAFA club. My grandparents used to come here and play war games.'
Of the many original features that remain, my favourites are the misshapen flagstones and enormous fireplace surrounded by pew-like seats.
Stamford's 600 listed buildings include numerous churches built by God-fearing traders, the oldest of which is the timber-roofed All Saints Church, mentioned in the Domesday book.
It's so historic that Roman artefacts have been found beneath it, although Stamford's golden era was the Middle Ages, when its location on the Great North Road, connecting London with York, transformed it into one of England's most prosperous wool towns — a place where wealthy wool traders could rest and refuel.
Their presence fuelled numerous other industries, many immortalised by the street names.
Bugle Lane, for example, was once home to craftsmen whose brass instruments were snapped up by passing carriage drivers.
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Glance down as you pass the inns which line the main thoroughfare of St Mary's Hill, with its arched stone bridge spanning the River Welland, and you'll notice many walls have built-in boots-scrapers, used by traders to remove the horse dung which once carpeted Stamford's streets.
And outside several other buildings are raised stone platforms, designed so that ladies could step directly from carriages into residences without risking dung-related disasters.
With such character, it's hardly surprising Stamford has doubled as a backdrop for many period dramas, including 2005 movie Pride And Prejudice, starring Keira Knightley.
Tiny turtle skulls
Featuring in that film was 16th century country mansion Burghley House.
Today, it's owned by the Burghley House Preservation Trust, established by the late 6th Marquess of Exeter, whose granddaughter currently lives there.
But it's still open to the public.
One of its most fascinating rooms is the Elizabethan-era kitchen, with its nine-metre-high ceilings and 250 original copper pans nailed to the brickwork.
Slightly less appealing is the collection of tiny turtle skulls affixed to another wall.
My guide points to a turtle-shaped antique soup tureen and tells me that these were nods to the Elizabethans' love of turtle soup.
Upstairs, in a room once slept in by Queen Victoria, a member of staff reveals that upcoming roof repairs are expected to cost £750,000.
Lucky, its Capability Brown-designed gardens, which cover 12 acres of the estate's 15,000, are still in good nick.
Make sure to refuel in Burghley House's Orangery, where the afternoon tea includes cakes garnished with flowers from the gardens.
I was staying around a five-minute drive away at Candlesticks, an eight-room hotel on a quiet lane near Stamford's centre.
The building dates back to the 1700s and has been a family-run operation since it opened as a hotel in the 1970s.
I tell Nelio Pinto, who runs it now and whose father came from Madeira, how I've always wanted to head to the Portuguese island to hike its levadas, the ancient man-made waterways.
But Nelio waxes lyrical about his love of Stamford and tells me about nearby Rutland Water, a wildlife haven covering ten square kilometres, as well as Stamford's pretty riverside parks.
Perhaps Madeira can wait, after all.