Vale of Belvoir
Langar
A low-lying Nottinghamshire village of Georgian dining, a major medieval church, native wildflowers and quiet parish walks.
- Village landmark
- Langar Hall's Georgian house dates from 1837
- Historic focus
- St Andrew's is Grade I and mainly 13th century
- Outdoors
- Naturescape has 45 acres open to the public
The Fox verdict
Georgian dining, medieval architecture and wildflower fields
Langar combines a noted restaurant with rooms, a Grade I church, a historic country inn and access to the flat Vale of Belvoir landscape.
The strongest visit pairs St Andrew's scale and monuments with Naturescape's public wildflower acreage, then leaves time for either Langar Hall or The Unicorn's Head. A parish walking route adds the industrial and bucolic sides of Barnstone and Langar.
Where to go
Places in Langar
Every place below is checked against a published source, listed with what it is and how long to give it.
Local signatures
3 placesLangar Hall
An apricot-washed Georgian house dating from 1837, now a restaurant with rooms serving modern British cooking with local produce, Belvoir estate game and vegetables from its kitchen garden.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 2 hours
- Locality
- Langar
Naturescape Wildflower Farm
Britain's largest producer of native wildflower seed, with 200 acres of wildflower fields, 45 acres open to the public and an on-site coffee shop.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 2 hours
- Locality
- north of Langar airfield
- Access
- 45 acres are open to the public.
St Andrew's Church
A mainly 13th-century cruciform ironstone church known as the Cathedral of the Vale, with Jacobean fittings and monuments connected with the Howe, Chaworth and Scrope families.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 1 hour
- Locality
- Langar
Food & drink
1 placeThe Unicorn's Head
A Grade II-listed former coaching inn dating to 1717, with cask ales, craft beers, pub food and an extensive outside space.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 1 hour 30 minutes
- Locality
- Langar
Walks & outdoors
1 placeBarnstone and Langar Walk
A Vale of Belvoir Ramblers route exploring both the industrial and bucolic parts of the parish and passing old filled-in limestone quarries.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 3 hours
- Locality
- Barnstone and Langar
Things to do
1 placeBarnstone Play Area
A children's play park on Main Road in Barnstone.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 1 hour
- Locality
- Main Road, Barnstone, NG13 9JP
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Three ways to explore Langar
Signature outings
The Cathedral of the Vale
See the mainly 13th-century St Andrew's, whose scale, crossing tower, Jacobean fittings and family monuments give substance to its Cathedral of the Vale nickname.
Industrial and bucolic Langar
Follow the Barnstone and Langar route through the parish's industrial and bucolic sides, passing old filled-in limestone quarries.
The old coaching inn
The Unicorn's Head brings together a 1717 Grade II-listed former coaching inn, pub food, cask ales, craft beers and extensive outside space.
The village story
Langar Village Guide
From Langar Hall and The Unicorn's Head to wildflower fields, a former RAF airfield and the Cathedral of the Vale.
Hall and coaching inn
An avenue of limes leads up to Langar Hall, a stuccoed, apricot-washed Georgian house dating from 1837. It's a restaurant with rooms now, run by Lila Arora, granddaughter of Imogen Skirving, who converted the family home into a hotel so guests would feel invited to dinner by a dear friend. The kitchen uses game from the Belvoir estate and vegetables from its own garden, heartier classics on Sundays and Mondays, finer dining the rest of the week. Alastair Sawday summed it up as "Stubbornly English, Deliciously Stylish, Quietly Eccentric."
The pub is the Unicorn's Head, a Grade II listed coaching inn dating to 1717 that started life as The Feathers and was renamed in 1799 after the estate's new owner, banker John Wright — the unicorn's head is a feature of the Howe family coat of arms. There's a beer garden, popular with families, dogs welcome in the bar, food running to sausage rolls, fish and chips, a 10oz steak under £20, and a Sunday roast that puts beef, pork and lamb on the same plate with all the trimmings. Three courses and a couple of drinks on a Saturday night comes to just under £40 a head — pricy, reviewers reckon, but not ridiculous. Through November and December it hosts the Langar Essential Village Market on Fridays, traders selling breakfast, lunch and odds you forgot to buy in town.
Local produce and the old airfield
For shopping, Delucy's Deli and a stall-based operation called Belvoir Bakery share a site on Barnstone Road that used to be a saw mill and wheelwright's workshop. North of the old airfield, Naturescape Wildflower Farm grows 200 acres of native wildflower seed, Britain's largest producer of it, 45 acres open to walk through with a coffee shop at the end.
The airfield itself, RAF Langar until 1963, is now home to Skydive Langar, run from the old control tower and, by its own account, the busiest civilian skydiving centre in the country: over 50,000 jumps a year off three turbine Cessna Grand Caravans.
Church, writers and Domesday
St Andrew's is nicknamed the Cathedral of the Vale, a cruciform 13th-century church built on a scale that suggests a pilgrimage site. The Howe family vault holds Admiral Richard Howe, hero of the Glorious First of June; his monument by Flaxman stands in St Paul's Cathedral, but his body stays at Langar. Novelist Samuel Butler, author of Erewhon, was born at the rectory in 1835, son of the vicar who later restored it.
The Domesday Book valued Langar at £5 in 1066 and £10 by 1086 — the Conquest, for once, was good for business.
Walking, transport and recreation
Walking routes follow the old Grantham Canal, disused since the 1920s and now a footpath with the Belvoir escarpment on the skyline, or head out to Colston Bassett and Cropwell Bishop, both still making Stilton. Aslockton, the nearest station, is about four and a half miles off; Bingham, much the same distance, is said to run trains toward Nottingham and Grantham — worth checking first. The 833 bus runs through Orston and Granby to Bingham, the nearest shopping town, about four miles north.
There's a pond by the recreation field, a play area over in Barnstone, and not much else in the way of announcement. Most people who stay seem to work that out fairly quickly and stop looking for more.
Stay around Nottinghamshire
Make a longer stay of it
Travel Fox holiday homes around Nottinghamshire, linked directly to their property pages.
Nottingham
Camila's Penthouse Central Stay with Balcony
- Sleeps 16
- 5 bedrooms
Nottingham
Anna's Central Stay
- Sleeps 16
- 5 bedrooms
Nottingham
Blair's Central Stay
- Sleeps 16
- 5 bedrooms
Nottingham
Melissa's Central Stay
- Sleeps 13
- 5 bedrooms
Nottingham
Stephanie's Central Stay
- Sleeps 6
- 2 bedrooms
A guide with a point of view
Written from research. Edited for real journeys.
Use the Official site links for live practical details, then use this guide for context, ideas and room to explore.
Sources
Every place on this page is checked against a published source. Each entry links the record we used and names who publishes it.
- Langar Hall — langarhall.com operator, sector body or destination organisation
- The Unicorn's Head — unicornsheadlangar.com operator, sector body or destination organisation
- Naturescape Wildflower Farm — naturescape.co.uk operator, sector body or destination organisation
- St Andrew's Church — historicengland.org.uk statutory register or public authority record not machine-readable; publisher restricts automated access
- Barnstone and Langar Walk — vbramblers.org other published source
- Barnstone Play Area — langarcumbarnstone-pc.gov.uk statutory register or public authority