An Inventory of the Historical Monuments in the Town of Stamford. Originally published by Her Majesty's Stationery Office, London, 1977.
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'Wharf Road', in An Inventory of the Historical Monuments in the Town of Stamford, (London, 1977) pp. 162. British History Online https://www.british-history.ac.uk/rchme/stamford/p162b [accessed 24 April 2024]
Wharf Road (Fig. 143)
This road follows the line of the town walls and takes its name from the wharves that formerly existed along the river at this point.
(450) Former Toll House and Warehouses are mainly of two storeys. The Toll House at the W. end was built in 1849 when the bridge was rebuilt to the designs of E. Browning (Mercury, 13 April). The walls are in bands of pindle and freestone, and the windows have ovolo-moulded mullions. The style is Tudoresque. On a corbelled chimney stack on the S. is a slab bearing the arms of Cecil. This house and that opposite, and the partially rebuilt Boat Inn on the N. (332, 333), provided an approach to the new bridge in uniform architectural styles.
The gabled Warehouses (Plate 162) on the E. are in coursed rubble and date from c. 1756. In 1755 Henry Ward, ironmonger, took a building lease of the site stipulating an expenditure of at least £300 (Ex. MS, uncat.). The early openings have wooden lintels, and two tall blocked openings on the S. formerly gave access from the river. The interior has no early features except heavy chamfered beams.
(451) Portal (Plate 162), consists of a large semicircular headed arch with rusticated voussoirs and keystone set in a wall of narrow coursed rubble divided by a moulded string and framed with ashlar quoins and a heavy dentil cornice with plain frieze and block parapet. It was built in 1845 to designs by Bryan Browning as the entrance to Grant's iron foundry; Gregory and Tinkler were the contractors (Mercury, 5 Sept. 1845; Burghley Account Book, 15 Nov. 1845). Blashfield set up his terracotta works here in 1858. In 1937 it was rebuilt several feet to the S., and parallel with the road, under supervision of H. F. Traylen.
(452) Gas Works. A range in red brick with yellow brick arches and slate hipped roof survives; it probably dates from 1824 when the Gas Company was formed (Mercury, 16 July). It comprises two former dwellings, that on the N. approximating to class 10, presumably for the foreman, the other of one-room plan. The doorways have rounded heads and the upper windows are conspicuously tall. The front is articulated by shallowly recessed window bays.
(453) House, No. 5, two storeys, rubble walls, stands on the acute angle formed between Gas Lane and the line of the medieval wall, here represented by Wharf Road. No part of the walls appear to be medieval. The N. range, against Gas Lane, is not shown on Knipe's map of 1833; the S. range may be 18th-century but contains no early features.