Willingham by Stow is a village in the West Lindsey district of Lincolnshire, 6 miles SE of Gainsborough and 10 miles NW of Lincoln. The church is in the village centre, and is a coursed limestone rubble building with limestone ashlar dressings, consisting of a W tower, nave with S porch and N transept, and chancel. It was rebuilt in 1880 by Broderick and Smith. The blocked N doorway and the font are Romanesque.

The largest holding in Willingham was held by Walo from his master Joscelin FitzLambert in 1086. This had been held by Ashlak and Earnwig in 1066, and was assessed at 5 carucates and one third. Other holdings were smaller. In 1066 Arnketil had 1½ carucates, held by Ilbert from the Bishop of Bayeux in 1086. 10 bovates of land and the third opart of 2 bovates were held by the Bishop of Lincoln. A holding of 18 bovates and the third part of 2 bovates was held in 1086 by Count Alan. This was land held by Steingrimr (12 bovates) and Gunnhvati (the rest) in 1066. 12 bovates of ploughland was held by a knight of Ilbert de Lacy from Ilbert himself in 1086 that had belonged to Deincora in 1066.

Pevsner notes the small pointed arches on the font as evidence that this is a transitional font of around 1200. In fact, it is an earlier font, fully of the Romanesque intersecting rounded-arch type. But at some point, the area of the lip of the font was cut away, taking with it the top part of the rounded arches and thus creating the transitional, “pointed arch” look now present. As noted above, the entire surface of the font has been cut back. Was this done to rid the font of its Romanesque details at a time when the aesthetic winds were shifting toward the Gothic style, around 1200? More likely, this change was made during the Neo-Gothic revival of the 19th c., which corresponds to the rebuilding of the church in the decorative style in 1880, the same time the font probably received its base. A point on the working process: while the paired columns are evenly spaced around the font, the one exception is the extremely narrow intercolumniation that occurs on the SW face, suggesting that the sculptor began the arcade here, worked around the face without pre-measuring, and ended up having to squeeze the final paired columns into the remaining space.