Lontov (Lontó)

Many educated personalities who have shaped Hungarian political and public life were born or lived in the village on the right bank of the Ipoly river, including Pál Rajner, Minister of the Interior, and Lajos Jekelfalussy, Minister of Defence. In the 17th and 18th centuries, 11 castles and mansions were built, some of which are privately owned, others have been destroyed. The cemetery mounds above the village still bear witness to the former presence of the Podhorszky, Jekelfalussy and Rajner families. On the hill, the visitor will find a Baroque church, built in the early 18th century and dedicated to St. Anne, with a carpenter’s bell tower dating from 1752. It is interesting to note that, according to oral tradition, the old village with its church on a hill was swallowed up by a landslide. Hundreds of years later, oxen were grazing on the outskirts of the village, which had been rebuilt by then, and a bell, the small bell of the former church of Lontov, was found on the horn of one of the oxen. Since then, this bell has become the village’s soul bell.