Austin House

Number 4 Austin Street, otherwise known as Austin House, stands on the site of a property which was known from 1737 as The Hermitage – “tenement, woolchamber, homested and appurtenances with half an acre of garden.” The owner was the famous antiquarian William Stukeley, Vicar of All Saints’ Church, who let the dwellings and designed the garden. When he moved to London in 1748, Stukeley sold the property to a draper, one George Oliver, and the property was then enlarged by the purchase of four cottages extending eastward to St Peter’s Vale.

Oliver’s son, described by Dr Till in ‘A Family Affair, Stamford and the Cecils 1650-1900’ as a “notable spendthrift”* sold the four cottages and then, in 1778, the Hermitage itself. The latter was bought by a druggist, Christopher Cocks, who proceded to build the house we see today at a cost of £1,200, including fitments, according to an indenture of 1792. In 1840 Austin House was sold to the Marquess of Exeter who let it to tenants of means who supported the Tory cause.

Internally the house has two large rooms on each storey flanking a central entrance and staircase. Pevsner in his ‘Buildings of England – Lincolnshire’ notes that the building has a “bleak sophisticated front to the street” but he adds that “the garden front is the prettiest of Stamford”. Divided steps lead from the garden to the porch with its fluted columns above which is an arched window topped with a pediment “like a Chinese hat” according to Pevsner. Either side of the porch and the central window are three storeys of elegant tall shallow bow-fronted windows leading up to the mansard roof. The whole composition, 60 feet from ground to roof is a delight to the eye, a perfect example of Regency elegance.