"Stamford is set in gently rolling countryside just west of the fen edge. It is a landscape of woods and agricultural land punctuated by delightful stone villages and aristocratic estates."

Quotes about Stamford
Stamford is a town which has always encouraged superlatives. Celia Fiennes, the late 17th-century traveller, said Stamford is 'as fine a built town all of stone as may be seen'. Sir Walter Scott apparently doffed his hat to the view up to St Mary's Church, claiming it was the finest sight on the road between London and Edinburgh and Sir John Betjeman called Stamford 'England's most attractive town'.

W. G. Hoskins, the famous 1950s historian, said: "If there is a more beautiful town in the whole of England I have yet to see it. The view of Stamford from the water-meadows on a fine June evening, about a quarter to half a mile upstream, is one of the finest sights that England has to show. The western sunlight catches the grey limestone walls and turns them to gold. It falls on towers and spires and flowing water, on the warm brown roofs of Collyweston slates, and on the dark mass of the Burghley woods behind. The hipped and mansard roofs of the town rise from the edge of the river above the flashing willows, tier upon tier, to the spire of All Saints, and the towers of St Martin's, St John's, and St Michael's, and, above them all, to the noble tower and spire of St Mary's, the central jewel in the crown of Stamford . . . "
[East Midlands and the Peak, ed. G. Grigson (London, 1951)]

In 1993, BBC television used Stamford as the setting for George Eliot's Middlemarch drama.
The producer, Louis Marks, said:
When we were planning the programme we presumed we would have to film all over the country - a street here, a square there, a house somewhere else. But then our researchers came back and told us they had found this marvellous town that had everything. So I went up to Lincolnshire, took one look and I knew they were right. Stamford is beautiful, extraordinary; it is absolutely stunning.

In 2005, Working Title Films filmed some of Pride and Prejudice in and around Stamford.
(View the trailer for the film)
This quote is from Visit Pride and Prejudice.com: "One of the finest Georgian stone towns in England, Stamford was used as the village of Meryton, where the film's heroine Elizabeth Bennet lived.

Sir Walter Scott described Stamford as ‘the finest scene between London and Edinburgh’ and it takes little imagination to turn back the clock to the charm and tranquility of ‘old England’.

But for the movie, set builders took around a month to complete the transformation of St George’s Square and St Mary’s Street into 18th century Jane Austen country. The Arts Centre, on St Mary's Street, was among buildings getting a 1790s makeover wiping away any hint of the 21st century. Over 200 local people were used as extras for the filming."