Langton by Spilsby, sometimes called Langton by Partney, is a village and civil parish in the East Lindsey District of Lincolnshire, England. It is situated approximately 4 miles (6 km) north from the town of Spilsby, Lincolnshire. The civil parish includes the hamlet of Sutterby.
In 1885 Kelly's Directory described Langton by Spilsby as "a village and parish situated in a picturesque valley", and having an 1881 population of 219. (In 2001 the population was 65.) The then existing Langton Hall is described as a "noble structure" of brick and stone in Elizabethan style. It lay at the north of the village overlooking "picturesque country", sheltered to the north by "beautiful woods". Parish soil is noted to be sandy, with loam and chalk on the high ground. Crops grown in the 1,287 acres (5 km2) parish were chiefly wheat, barley, oats, turnips, and seeds. A National School had been erected in 1849 – it held 60 children, and had an average attendance of 30. Commercial occupations noted were five farmers, a blacksmith, shoe maker, wheelwright, a publican at the Langton Arms public house, and a shopkeeper and carrier.
Langton Hall was destroyed by fire in 1405 and rebuilt in the 1550s. The Elizabethan manor lasted until about 1817 when it too was destroyed by fire. Bennet Rothes Langton erected the last Langton Hall to the designs of James Fowler, with grounds by Veitch and Son in 1866-67, built of brick with stone dressings in the Elizabethan style. It was demolished about 1960.
Lincolnshire is very low-lying and land had to be drained for agriculture to be successful. The larger drainage channels, many of which are parallel to each other, became boundaries between parishes. Many parishes are long and thin for this reason.
There is much fenland in Lincolnshire, particularly in the Boston and Horncastle areas. Fenlands tended to be extraparochial before the mid 1850s, and although many sections were identified with names and given the title "civil parish", little information has been found about them. Many appear to be abolished in 1906, but the parish which adopts them is not given in A Vision of Britain through Time. Note the WR category Lincolnshire Fenland Settlements which is an attempt to organize them into one list.
From 1889 until 1974 Lincolnshire was divided into three administrative counties: Parts of Holland, Parts of Kesteven and Parts of Lindsey. These formal names do not fit with modern grammatical usage, but that is what they were, nonetheless. In 1974 the northern section of Lindsey, along with the East Riding of Yorkshire, became the short-lived county of Humberside. In 1996 Humberside was abolished and the area previously in Lincolnshire was made into the two "unitary authorities" of North Lincolnshire and North East Lincolnshire. The remainder of Lincolnshire was divided into "non-metropolitan districts" or "district municipalities" in 1974. Towns, villages and parishes are all listed under Lincolnshire, but the present-day districts are also given so that places in this large county can more easily be located and linked to their wider neighbourhoods. See the WR placepage Lincolnshire, England and the smaller divisions for further explanation.