On the bus to Stamford - The High Street

AI will tell you that Stamford High Street ‘has frequently been ranked among the best and loveliest high streets in the UK by publications like The Telegraph and The Sunday Times’ but as you alight from Delaine’s 301 bus at All Saints, cross Red Lion Square and head up the High Street you will quickly see that for yourself!

Gladwells Corner is on your right and occupies the old HSBC building which is now alive with their fine art and sculptures of the highest quality, not previously easily available in this corner of South Lincolnshire. The building, which was The Midland Bank before the brand was acquired by the HSBC at the end of the last century, has stood on this site for the last 150 years.

It extends to almost 10,000 square feet across five floors and was once a maze of partitioned offices, safes and service rooms. Now this has been opened and restored to create a sequence of galleries and interior settings that allow paintings and sculpture to be viewed in a more domestic and architectural context. In 1843, the Marquess of Exeter had relinquished part of No. 1 High Street to allow road widening by the Improvement Commissioners on the condition that a new, respectable front was erected. This fell to Thurlby -born architect Bryan Browning who designed the building in 1846. He was also responsible for the House of Correction in Folkingham, Bourne Town Hall and the Rectory in Deeping St James.