century were placed high up on the south wall. There are two tomb recesses in the south wall, one finely-moulded, probably of c.1300. In one is a large, stone coffin lid with carved inscription in medieval French which commemorates Henry de Elyngton, Rector of St Paul's between 1384 and 1400, (although this stone has suffered from some physical deterioration in recent years), and in the other a miniature, thirteenth-century coffin lid, presumably that of a child. Over the interior of the west door is an arched inscription commemorating Eustace Malherbe (Eustachius Malerbe), Member of Parliament for Stamford in 1322, and also a male, bearded, stone head, believed to be of Christ. Attached to the church was originally the cell of an anchorite, mentioned in 1382, 1435 and 1521, wherein a female hermit was walled up effectively for the duration of her life. The main part of the present building was originally a chapel dedicated to St Katherine and the religious guild of St Katherine (refounded in 1480 by Alderman William Browne, founder of Browne's Hospital) met for its services in the chapel. The guild was a wealthy one and its members included Lady Margaret Beaufort, Princess Cecily of York and David Cecil, grandfather of William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley and Alderman William Radcliffe, founder of Stamford School. After the Reformation, parts of its property came into the hands of the Cecil family in 1549. St Paul's was one of the more modest livings in Stamford which may have contributed to the decision to close it. It may also have suffered at the hands of Lancastrian army which sacked Stamford in 1461. Following an Act of Parliament of 1548 permitting amalgamation of Stamford's parishes, St Paul's was amalgamated with St George's and the church, now redundant, was largely demolished, its fixtures and fittings sold. Post-Reformation use Amid the upheavals of the Reformation, Stamford School, founded in 1532, left its original home in the Corpus Christi chapel of Stamford's St Mary's church and moved into the remaining section of St Paul's church on the north side of St Paul's Street. The move occurred perhaps as early as 1548 when the school's future was secured by Act of Parliament arranged by senior court official and old boy, William Cecil, and had certainly been completed by 1556. From the mid-sixteenth century the surviving part of St Paul's – essentially the south aisle of the