Of the six churches, St. Mary’s and All Saints have spires. St. Mary’s, on a hill which slopes to the river, is a fine arcaded Early English tower with a broach spire of later date, but full of beautiful work in statue and canopy, very much resembling that at Ketton in Rutland. There are three curious round panels with interlaced work over the porch, and a rich altar tomb with very lofty canopy that commemorates Sir David Phillips and his wife. They had served Margaret Countess of Richmond, the mother of Henry VII., who resided at Collyweston close by. The body of the church is rather crowded together and not easy to view. In this respect All Saints, with its turrets, pinnacles and graceful spire, and its double belfry lights under one hood moulding as at Grantham, has the advantage. Moreover the North Road goes up past it, and the market place gives plenty of space all round it. Inside, the arcade columns are cylindrical and plain on the north, but clustered on the south side, with foliated capitals. This church is rich in brasses, chiefly of the great wool-merchant family of Browne, one of whom, William, founded a magnificent hospital and enlarged the church, and in all probability built the handsome spire; he was buried in 1489. The other churches all have square towers, that of St. John’s Church is over the last bay of the north aisle, and at the last bay of the south aisle is a porch. The whole construction is excellent, pillars tall, roof rich and windows graceful, and it once was filled with exceptionally fine stained glass. St. George’s Church, being rebuilt with fragments of other destroyed churches, shows a curious mixture of octagonal and cylindrical work in the same pillars. St. Michael’s and St. Martin’s are the other two, of which the latter is across the water in what is called _Stamford Baron_, it is the burial place of the Cecils and it is not far from the imposing gateway into Burghley Park. This church and park, with the splendid house designed by John Thorpe for the great William Cecil in 1565, are all in the diocese of Peterborough, and the county of Northampton. We shall have to recall the church when we speak of the beautiful windows which Lord Exeter was allowed by the Fortescue family to take from the Collegiate Church of Tattershall, and which are now in St. Martin’s, where they are extremely badly set with bands of modern glass interrupting the old. Another remnant of a church stands on the north-west of the town, St. Paul’s. This ruin was made over as early as the sixteenth century for use as a schoolroom for Radcliffe’s Grammar School. Schools, hospitals or almshouses once abounded in Stamford, where the latter are often called _Callises_, being the benefactions of the great wool merchants of the Staple of Calais. The chief of all these, and one which is still in use, is Browne’s Hospital, founded in 1480 by a Stamford merchant who had been six times Mayor, for a Warden, a Confrater, ten poor men, and two poor