Langton by Spilsby (also known as Langton by Partney) is mentioned in the Domesday Survey. The Old Hall burnt down in 1405 and was rebuilt in Elizabethan times at TF 3912 7052 (the source for this grid reference is now unknown) and again in 1822 reportedly at the same place (though see PRN 46751). It was finally demolished in 1845. In 1959, a complex of banks and ditches in Church Close was levelled leaving only the moated site (hall) as an earthwork. Pottery recovered from the area is mostly post-medieval. A silver coin of Edward III and an ancient 'green glass bottle' and key were found on the hall site in 1868. {1}{2}{3}{4}{5}{6}{7} Earthworks of the shrunken medieval village were identified on aerial photographs by the National Mapping Programme. {8} The medieval homestead moat and minor earthworks in Church Close were destroyed by ploughing in 1959. They formed part of the medieval settlement of Langton. The moat had been thirty feet wide. The reasons for the decay of the village can only be conjectured. Depopulation due to sheep farming is one possibility, and another is deliberate re-settlement away from the garden front of the new hall. {9} Langton was held by Hugh, Earl of Chester in 1086, and at the time of the Lindsey Survey, c.1115, Earl Hugh's son and heir had twelve carucates in Langton. No mention of a manor is made in Domesday but there is ample evidence that the Langtons held a manor there in the early 13th century. Certainly John de Langton was styled 'Lord of Langton' in the Assize Roll of the tenth year of Edward III's reign. {10}