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Stamford Hotel

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Venue Type & Location

Hotel

Overview

  • Address: 16 St. Mary’s Street (in 1882) Stamford. Click here for map

  • Performance Space Description: The hotel seems to have been a rather stately, impressive building in the classical style. James Stevens Curl describes it as a “handsome Greek Revival” featuring “a Giant Order derived from the Coragic Monument of Lysicrates in Athens” (166), for instance, while David Watkins makes note of its “engaged Corinthian columns rising through the two upper storeys” (106). In addition to providing accommodations for travelers, the building contained a large banqueting or assembly room in which entertainments took place. For a more extensive description of the building and an image of its exterior, see Richardson & Donaldson (pp116 and 124, respectively).

    • Performance History

  • The Stamford Hotel was constructed from designs by John Linnell Bond, with funds supplied by Sir Gerard Noel. There is some disagreement about the age of the building (some accounts suggest that construction began in 1810, while others suggest that the hotel dates from the 1820s.)

  • Theodore Corbett claims that it served as “a political center, a Whig counterweight to the political influence of the Cecil family” (22). In addition to being a hotel, he writes, it “was thus a meeting place and power base for an opposition party” (ibid).

  • Though the hotel is no longer operational, much of the original building still exists. The room in which performances took place may well be the ‘ballroom’ that now serves as a studio for a local dance school.

    Please see the 'Bibliographic Sources' link at right for a complete listing of materials (both primary and secondary) from which the above information was compiled.

    Beth Marquis

    • Troupes at Stamford Hotel

    Film Affiliated people Film Type # of event(s)
    "Ethiopian Serenaders" (impostors) Minstrel Definite "Ethiopian Serenaders" (impostors)

    Events at Stamford Hotel

    Event Date Venue Location Film
    Minstrel Show - Stamford, Huntingdonshire "Ethiopian Serenaders" (impostors)

    Bibliographic Sources

    View a list of abbreviations.

    • Sheffield: William White, 1882
    • London: Barrie & Jenkins, 1982
    • Leicester: Leicester UP, 1965
    • New York: Benjamin Blom, Inc., 1968
    • London: Batsford, 1950
    • New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers UP, 2001
    • Newton Abbot: David & Charles, 1993
    • (Contains images of what may be the current state of the old banqueting rooms).