Building on the Stamford Manorial Waste

The use of the Stamford Manorial Court Rolls to construct a building’s history.

Chris Hunt, 2025

This short paper examines a surviving building sited on the former manorial waste of Stamford and how Court Rolls can be used to understand better that building’s development through the 19th century. The Stamford Manorial Court Rolls are contained within six contemporary bound volumes covering the period from 1695 to 1916 (with gaps); and the Manorial Survey of the Waste taken in 1846, mentioned in this article, are stored in the Stamford Borough Archives, which are held in Stamford Town Hall.

The erstwhile Dolphin Inn is situated on East Street and has, since its closure, been converted into two semi-detached houses. The main building was at right angles to the road with an entrance from a small yard at the front of the inn. The site is located between East Street to the north, Elm Street to the south, a narrow lane to the east and the former Borough Fire Station to the west.

The present building is of two storeys and constructed of coursed rubble with a Collyweston slate roof. Prior to alterations in the late 1970s there was a brick extension to the rear, which included a kitchen, outhouses and toilets on two sides of a small yard. To the front of the building, until the modernisation of the inn, there was a brick and pantile-roofed workshop, part of which had formerly been used as a shop. The site was even more restricted before the Second World War, with further outhouses, stables and a bake house.

Until 1863 the inn was a private house. In that year the licence was transferred from the (Old) Dolphin Inn sited in Broad Street when it was demolished along with the Horns and Blue Boar Inn to provide a site for the new Roman Catholic Church and school room. Mr George Hunt, Brewer, of Water Street, St Martins owned both properties, having acquired the East Street site in the late 1840s from Mr Joseph Arnold.

Being outside the line of the Town Wall and not part of pre-18th century developments, East Street, along with properties on North Street and West Street, was designated by the Manorial Court as being on the manorial waste. They were in the most part sited between the open fields and the line of the town’s former wall. It must be remembered that the open fields were not finally enclosed until the mid-1870s.

During the early 19th century the waste was encroached upon by a number of buildings. These were often of an agricultural nature. However, by the late 1820s a number had been extended and converted into dwellings. The freemen of the borough were allowed by custom to stock the waste all the year round but it was these very people who encroached on the manor. The Manorial Court imposed fines on the encroachers; these were not rents although the Marquis of Exeter and his agents tried to cultivate this idea.

The question of ownership is complex and a number did not pay their fines as they considered the properties to be freehold. Even the Marquis of Exeter paid a fine to his own Court.

Using the Stamford Manorial Court Rolls it is possible to trace the history of a building through fines raised at the Court back through the 19th century. Although this does not provide an exact date of construction it does show changes in the scale of the encroachment through ownership records.

Starting from the time that the Licence and Sign Board was transferred from the inn on Broad Street to East Street by Mr Henry Taylor, we find in the Court Rolls for 1863 that the building is described as ‘HUNT George (late Joseph Arnold) House late a private house now a public house called “the Dolphin”, garden, cowhouse, hovel and dunghill, latterly occupied by Robert Islip Junior and now by Taylor, fine 10/-.’ Henry Taylor used the premises to carry on the trade of baker, grocer, flour and provision dealer. He advertised stabling and good accommodation for travellers; carriers used the inn and he provided a market-ordinary on Fridays. The Taylor family managed the inn until the middle of 1898 when a Mr C. Waite acquired the lease from the Brewery (George and Henry Robert Hunt).

The Hunt family had acquired the property in the late 1840s soon after the Survey of the Encroachment of the Manor of Stamford conducted in 1846. George Hunt was a successful brewer, farmer and owner of property. Hunt’s brewery was situated on Water Street, close to the Great Northern railway station. In the 1846 survey the property is stated as being owned by Joseph Arnold and occupied by John Morris. The description reads, ‘A House stone built and slated, sheds plaster and slated at back, workshops and sheds in front of House, and one at back, cowshed stone and tiled with yard let off to Edward Chester, three lath and plaster cottages and shop towards North Street.’

Joseph Arnold (the younger) had acquired the property on the death of his father Joseph (the elder). Joseph Arnold the Younger had at the Michaelmas Hall (September 30th) of 1819 acquired his freedom: ‘Joseph Arnold the Younger of the Borough aforesaid, Labourer, because he was born in the said Borough at the time of his birth his father, Joseph Arnold being a Free Burgess, thereof is admitted to scott and lott and sworn.’

Joseph Arnold the Elder, a labourer, was a freeman of the borough, which he had bought for four pounds at the Michaelmas Hall (October 9th) of 1788. He voted for the Burghley candidates at the general election of 1809.

Through the period 1806 to 1830 the Arnolds (father and son) are entered in the Court Roll for a property that is described as being a ‘House, Garden, Cowhouse and Hovel’. In 1810 the fine was reduced to 15/-; it was raised to 17/6 for the years 1829 and 1830, and from 1831 onwards it was reduced to 10/-. These changes in the fines were not necessarily due to alterations to the structure of the building. In 1805 there was a small change as the description mentions two gardens. In 1804 Joseph Arnold the Elder was fined One Guinea for having ‘an house, Building, Garden and Yard enlarged ... contrary to Law and the Custom of this Manor’.

Manorial Court records do not survive for 1792 to 1803 and therefore we have to look further back; they however survive from 1748 to 1791.  In 1790 and 1791 Joseph Arnold (the Elder) was fined 1/- ‘because he hath laid or caused to be laid one Dunghill upon the waste ground in the Manor contrary to the custom thereof’. It is not possible to locate this site precisely.  There are no earlier mentions of the Arnold family in the Court Rolls and Joseph was not fined for any other encroachments on the Waste. Sizeable and well-constructed buildings could spring from such small walled enclosures and similar illegal encroachments. It is therefore suggested that the building that became the Dolphin Inn and remains standing today must have originated from a building constructed between 1792 and 1803.

I hope that this brief paper has illustrated how the Manorial Court Rolls, as a source of information for local historians, fill a gap in our knowledge of early 19th century Stamford and add a missing building to the RCHM list of pre-1850s structures in the town.

A print version can be downloaded HERE