Harmston is a village in the North Kesteven district of Lincolnshire, 5 miles S of Lincoln. The church stands in the centre of the village. The nave with clerestory and side aisles, chancel, and S porch were rebuilt in 1868 by R. J. Withers of London. This followed an earlier rebuilding of the church in 1717 under the patronage of Sir George Thorold of Harmston. Throughout these renovations the W tower seems to have been left intact and is primarily of the 12thc. though capped with a Perpendicular embattled parapet with eight pinnacles. The capitals of the twin bell-openings in the upper stage of the tower and the interior tower arch are Romanesque.

The Domesday Survey records a church and a priest in Harmston; at this time the tenant in chief was Earl Hugh of Chester, who held it in demesne. It was assessed for geld at 20½ carucates. In 1374 the advowson of Harmston church was held by the prior and convent and Bustleham (Bisham) Priory in Berkshire; in 1393 Harmston church was appropriated to St. Katherine’s Priory, Lincoln.

The W and N capitals of the bell-stage may be replacements; their edges appear rather crisp from the ground. All six capitals of the interior E tower arch are good early Romanesque work. These capitals clearly reflect Remigius’s W facade of Lincoln Cathedral. The Corinthian type capitals of the responds and the E nook-shafts on the tower arch here correspond to those of the N niche, S recess, and S niche of the W facade as well as the capitals in the N niche in the Morning Chapel, the S niche in the Ringer’s Chapel, and the S recess of the S facade (walled up in the 13thc.) at Lincoln. It is quite possible that the Harmston capitals are the product of the same workshop that produced the cathedral capitals. The stylistic parallel noted here, taken together with the reference in Domesday, suggest a late-11thc. date for the W tower at Harmston.