The first overnight stop on our slow drive to Scotland is Stamford in Lincolnshire, a centre of the wool trade in the Middle Ages, just an hour's drive north of Cambridge. We pass Stilton, after which Britain's best-known blue cheese is named. It isn't made there, but was sold at two coaching inns in the village. As long ago as the early 18th Century, Defoe associated Stilton with cheese. An e-mail from Expedia shows the address of our hotel as 24A High Street, Stamford. We imagine an old coaching inn in the town centre. Driving among the limestone buildings, honey yellow in the bright sunlight, we find that the High Street is pedestrianised. The sat nav leads us to a small square beyond, but there's no sign of a hotel. We park in Bath Row, where
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