[Illustration: ST. MARY’S CHURCH AND HALL, STAMFORD.] _St. George’s Church_ exemplifies better than any other what has been said concerning the restoration of the Stamford churches after the 1461 havoc. Without this explanation a visitor would be sorely puzzled on beholding a series of nave columns, each consisting of an Early English base supporting an octagonal drum of Decorated date, above which is an Early English cylindrical section, surmounted in its turn by another octagonal portion and a cap, both of Decorated style. The church once possessed a series of windows containing representations of King Edward III. and the first Knights of the Garter, but unfortunately this glass, which would have been of inestimable value and interest at the present time, was destroyed during the Parliamentary wars. _St. Michael’s Church_ is quite modern (consecrated in 1836), though it occupies the site of an eleventh or twelfth century building. It contains but little of interest to the ecclesiologist. A portion (the south aisle) of the _Church of St. Paul_ survives, and has been used since the sixteenth century as a class-room in connection with the Grammar School. It is a curious and somewhat puzzling building, being partly of thirteenth-century date, but having on the south wall a Norman corbel-table. It also contains fragments of later date, a piscina and a small heart shrine. So far all the churches we have been considering are on the Lincolnshire side of the river, but for the sake of completeness a word or two must be said of the _Church of St. Martin_ in the Northamptonshire part of the town, though this is strictly outside our subject. It is mainly a fifteenth-century structure, though there are traces of the older building which is known to have existed on this site. Some of the windows contain some fine old glass which was brought here from Tattershall Church and elsewhere; but perhaps the chief interest of the church to the visitor is afforded by the series of tombs of the Cecil family, including those of the great Elizabethan statesman, Lord Burghley, and of his father and mother, as well as a very pretentious Italian marble monument commemorating John, Earl of Exeter (_ob._ 1700), and his wife Anne. An opportunity occurs here to correct an error which has found its way, by repeated copyings, into almost all the printed accounts of this church, to the effect that William Laud, who became Archbishop of Canterbury, was once curate of St. Martin’s, Stamford, whereas the parish which can in reality claim this distinction is Stanford (formerly known as Stanford-on-Avon), near the borders of Warwickshire. Both places being in the same county and diocese, the mistake is a not unnatural one.[90]