Church History

The church from the south

Horbling is a Lincolnshire village, situated on the edge of the fens, just North of Billingborough. The origins of the parish are based on agriculture and it continues to be a farming community.

There has been a settlement here for many hundreds of years, as testified by the name: experts agree that this indicates a community which arrived here with the first wave of Anglo-Saxon invaders in the late fifth or early sixth century, following the departure of the Romans.

We have no record of when the first church was built, but by 1086, when the Domesday Book was compiled, the entry for Horbelinge lists a church (unlike our neighbours in Billingborough, who only had half a church!) and 2 mills, which were shared with the community at Harrowby. Whether that building constituted what we know to be the oldest parts of the present parish church dedicated to St. Andrew cannot be claimed with certainty; nevertheless, there is much structural evidence, both externally and internally, pointing to the building of a village church towards the end of the eleventh century.

It is a fine Grade 1 listed building with many interesting features, not least of which are the varying angles seen in the tower and some of the pillars. Much work was undertaken about 100 years ago to restrain these problems, which fortunately seems to have been successful.