Welcome. The United Benefice of the Church of the Ascension, Harrowby and St John the Baptist's, Londonthorpe serves the people living in the housing area of Harrowby in the north-eastern part of Grantham and the adjacent village of Londonthorpe just outside of town. We are two of fourteen churches in the Deanery of Grantham, within the Diocese of Lincoln, which in turn is part of the Church of England in the Province of Canterbury in the United Kingdom – our Mother Church is the The Cathedral Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Lincoln. We are member of Churches Together in Grantham and District and a supporter of Grantham Foodbank.

GO TO:      Church of the Ascension, Harrowby           St John the Baptist, Londonthorpe

Harrowby and Londonthorpe were both recorded as manors in the Domesday Survey and with water mills on the River Witham. Harrowby was part of the extensive parish of St Wulfram’s Grantham, but Londonthorpe had its own church of St John the Baptist of which parts date to the C12th. Harrowby and Londonthorpe remained largely undeveloped and under-populated until the late 1850s whereas the industrial town of Grantham was expanding rapidly into suburbs to the north and the south of the old borough largely owing to the success of Richard Hornsby and sons, agricultural engineers. Harrowby witnessed some controlled expansion as permitted by the Earls of Harrowby (resident at Sandon Hall, Staffordshire) with a militia barracks, some villa-type housing and the cemetery for Grantham borough. Londonthorpe retained its character as an estate village of the Earls Brownlow of Belton House into the twentieth century. During World War One, military training camps were set up in Belton Park and in Harrowby with over 160,000 men in the Machine Gun Corps alone passing through this area. After the 2nd World War, extensive Council House estates were built in the area between Belton Lane and Harrowby Lane and were opened in the early 1950s. It was at that point that moves began to provide a church to serve the new community and the church of the Ascension was built in 1956 and was part of the parish of Grantham until a separate parish was created in the parish was created in the 1970’s. Alma Park, on the northern perimeter of the town and within the parish, was designated a Light Industries site in the late 1960’s and previous prefabricated dwellings were replaced in the early 1970’s by the present housing estate.The mid 1980’s saw 1400 executive houses built as the Sunningdale estate to the north east of the town centre, also falling within the Parish.