The Corn Exchange

In 1858 the Corn Market Company purchased and demolished the old Black Swan Inn, which originally stood on this site. Local architect Edward Browning designed a Corn Exchange building in an old English domestic style, built of stone from Little Casterton, with a roof of three quarters ribbed glass. When it opened in the following year it was used not just for the buying and selling of corn, but also for public meetings, balls, concerts and shows on tour from London. Its use expanded further: by 1900 it was being used to show films and in that year the Stamford Amateur Operatic Society performed its first show The Gondoliers.

Over the next 23 years the building was known in turn as The New Palace of Varieties; The Empire; The Electric Cinema and The Roller Skating Rink.

The building was destroyed by fire in 1925. The next year it was rebuilt by the New Corn Exchange Co. with the roof, gallery and stage designed by local architect F J Lenton. It was known as the Corn Exchange Cinema until film shows stopped in 1950. Thereafter the building was used by local amateur theatrical groups, among them the Stamford Pantomime Players who performed their first show here – Mother Goose. The hall was also used as an antique centre and an auction room.

In 2000 a charity, the Corn Exchange Theatre Company, took over the lease and volunteers completely restored the building as a fully functioning theatre at a cost of £2 million. Today the Corn Exchange hosts a wide range of uses from professional and amateur theatre, through conferences to civil weddings.