Langton Herring

Langton Herring is a village about 5 miles (8 km) north-west of Weymouth, set on a ridge above the Fleet, the brackish lagoon behind Chesil Beach. The Fleet is eight miles long. The village feels remote even though the edge of Weymouth is only three or four miles away. The name comes from the Old English for a long farmstead, with the Harang family, lords of the manor in the 13th century, adding the second half.

It is one of the handful of doubly Thankful Villages in England, where every man who went to war in both world wars came home. It is also the only village in Dorset to lose nobody in the Great War. About half a mile east, by the B3157, stands Langton Cross, a medieval stone monolith missing its top arm. The parish church of St Peter is small and was heavily restored by the Victorians.

The Elm Tree Inn is the village pub, a country pub a short walk from Chesil Beach and the Fleet. It closed in November 2023 and reopened under community ownership on 14 July 2025, after villagers raised more than half a million pounds to buy it. Smuggling folklore clings to the building, including a bricked-up hole in the old bar, and Barnes Wallis stayed there while the bouncing bomb was tested on the Fleet.

A circular walk from the village heads south to join the coast path by Moonfleet Manor, then keeps close to the water round the Herbury promontory. Abbotsbury Swannery is also on the Fleet.