St. Andrew's Church

Horbling is 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.

More information is available on the Church's own website.

St Andrew's dates from the 13th Century - the first vicar of horbling being listed as Joscius de Billingburgh 1222-1240. 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.

There is a magnificent stained glass west window in remembrance of Benjamin Smith (d. 1859) - a much respected local solicitor and clerk to the Black Sluice Drainage Trust who continue to support its maintainance.

There is a peal of six bells which are considered very fine and are in regular use by both local and more distant campanologists.

A rather special historical event in Church life was the baptism in the early 1900s of Michael Ramsey - later to become Archbishop of Canterbury.

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.