Georgian Festival. Stamford Bull Run. For some 700 years Stamford was host to a riotous bull-running festival held on 13 November. According to local tradition, the origin of the custom dated from the time of King John (1199 - 1216) when William de Warenne, 5th Earl of Surrey, standing on the battlements of the castle, saw two bulls fighting in the meadow beneath. Some butchers came to part the combatants and one of the bulls ran into the town, causing a great uproar. The earl, mounting his horse, rode after the animal, and enjoyed the sport so much, that he gave the meadow in which the fight began to the butchers of Stamford on condition that they should provide a bull, to be run in the town every 13 November, for ever after.The town of Stamford acquired common rights in the grassy flood plain next to the Welland, which until the last century was known as Bull-meadow, and today just as The Meadows.

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