Billington Church in 1810 from a painting by George Shepherd

At first sight Saint Michael's, Billington looks like a Victorian church. This is because it as heavily restored in the middle of the 19th century. The church was a chapel of ease in the parish of Leighton Buzzard until it became an ecclesiastical parish in its own right in 1810.

Billington Church from the south December 2008

The church stands on top of the hill in Great Billington on the west side of the main road and is built of local sandstone and limestone from nearby Totternhoe. The earliest surviving parts (in fact the only medieval survivals) are the blank west window and, inside, a piscina which are 13th century. A watercolour made about the time the chapel became a church (1810) [see above] shows a long, low, aisle-less building with a dormer window on the south side of the nave towards the chancel and a weather-boarded bellcote at the west end. Clearly the modern building was modelled on its predecessor.