St Peter

This church was enlarged and substantially rebuilt in the early art of the last century, when the vestry and south aisle were added; the arts of the fabric of the original building still remaining are the tower, part of the north wall, including its single lancet window, in the chancel. The south wall of the old building was where the round pillar now stands, and the door behind the clock had access to a gallery. The restorers evidently had a problem, as the chancel arch is not central to the nave ceiling and the moulded and shafted respond to the arch obscures the name on one of the floor slabs in the chancel; the other slabs bear the names of two former Rectors of 1627 and 1670.

The chancel rails date from the 17th century, and the pulpit was made in 1787. The font is a fine 15th century piece, and there are two bells, one cast in 1635 by Thomas Purdue of Closworth and the other in 1682 by Richard Austin of Sherbourne.

The organ is a single manual instrument with three stops; its case is modern. A notice in the vestry, concerning the Royal Ordinance of 1847 calls for a harvest thanksgiving, there had been a succession of bad harvests coinciding with the potato famine in Ireland.

A tablet in the north wall, and a small plate on the inside of the tower door, commemorate members of the Sparks family; it is largely due to hem that we owe the field walls, much of the drainage, the plantations, the restoration of the church and the village hall.

Langton Herring is the only Thankful Village in Dorset and sits up high on a perch over looking Chesil Beach and the English Channel. In the churchyard is a horse chestnut tree planted in memory of Sir Winston Churchill.

The churchwardens accounts go back to 1745; among the more usual entries they record payments for ‘ringing the bells for merriment’, repairs to windows ‘broken by gamesters’, and only too often, expenses for burial of strangers whose bodies were washed up on Chesil Beach.