About Us

The parish is known as Langton with Sutterby and there are churches in both parishes. The church of St John the Baptist in the hamlet of Sutterby is now closed and is looked after by the Friends of Friendless Churches. Langton with Sutterby is now a member of the Partney Group of parishes, which comprises parishes within the Deanery of Bolingbroke.

The present church, which replaced a church also dedicated to St Peter and St Paul, was constructed about 1725 by George Langton and the building is essentially unchanged since it was built. It is a Grade I listed building in the Classical style with very unusual box pews facing each other, a three decker pulpit and a gallery at the western end. There are said to be only three parish churches in England which share the same arrangement of facing box pews in the style used in many Oxford and Cambridge colleges. The peal of six bells by Thomas Mears was given by another member of the Langton family in 1825. Later in the nineteenth century W.H. Bailey & Co of Salford (a well known engineering company of its day) made an unusual “barrel” mechanism to chime the bells by pulling external hammers. The barrel has projecting tines which pluck levers attached to the hammers and the levers can be set in different positions to to play six different tunes.

John Betjeman described Langton church as 'one of the most attractive and interesting churches in Lincolnshire and therefore in England, because Lincolnshire is rich in remarkable churches.' The church features in Simon Jenkins's book "England's Thousand Best Churches" originally published in 1999 and is in Pevsner's "Buildings of England - Lincolnshire".

The church interior was repainted in 2006 using the original Georgian colour scheme.

In 2008 the bells were restored to full circle ringing by Whitechapel Bell Foundry (the successor to Thomas Mears) and the Bishop of Lincoln attended a re-dedication service on Sunday 31 August 2008.

In 2010 the Henry Bryceson organ was fully restored and an inaugural concert took place in September 2010.  Concerts now take place regularly in May and September each hear and are very well supported.  The building's excellent acoustics are particularly well suited to chamber music and concerts have included a very wide variety of musical genres.

The box pews were also fully restored and polished during 2010, recreating in full the glory of this Grade 1 listed Georgian building which was visited by Dr Samuel Johnson when he came to see his friend Bennet Langton in 1764