Elmstone comes from the Old English ‘tūn’ meaning an ‘enclosure, a farmstead, village’
combined with a personal name; therefore, ‘Æthelmær’s village’. The Domesday Book
records Elmstone as Ælvetone.
Elmstone parish church, which is without dedication, is a Grade: II listed building.
The Normans built it in the 12th century, added the tower in the following century,
with remodelling and extensions 100 year later. Richard Phelps cast and hung a ring
of three bells in 1712. In 1800, Edward Hasted described the Elmstone church as a
‘small building, consisting of a body, a very small north isle, and a chancel, having
a square tower, embattled at the north-west corner, in which there are three bells’.
The Victorians carried out restorations in 1878, and 1900.
