Elmsett is a village and

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authority ...

Suffolk Suffolk () is a ceremonial county of England in East Anglia. It borders Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south; the North Sea lies to the east. The county town is Ipswich; other important towns include Lowes ...

, England. Located around three miles north-east of Hadleigh, it is in Babergh district. In 2005, it had a population of 826, reducing to 788 at the 2011 census.

History

The first record of Elmsett comes from 995 when it was written Ylmesaeton (Ylme for Elm, Saeten for dwellers). By 1900, the village had around 16 farms and the Elmsett Mill, together employing most of the residents. In 1932, the village made national news when Charles Westren, a farmer at Elmsett Hall, refused to pay his

tithe A tithe (; from Old English: ''teogoþa'' "tenth") is a one-tenth part of something, paid as a contribution to a religious organization or compulsory tax to government. Today, tithes are normally voluntary and paid in cash or cheques or more r ...

to the

church Church may refer to: Religion * Church (building), a building for Christian religious activities * Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination * Church service, a formalized period of Christian communal worship * Chris ...

. As a result, goods were seized from the hall. This is remembered by the Tithe memorial opposite the church, on which it is inscribed (the inscription contains the spelling mistake "commerate" instead of "commemorate"):

1934. To commerate the Tithe seizure at Elmsett Hall of furniture including baby's bed and blankets, herd of dairy cows, eight corn stacks and seed stacks valued at £1200 for tithe valued at £385.

The incident was one of many across the country, and the events were documented by

George Orwell Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950), better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English novelist, essayist, journalist, and critic. His work is characterised by lucid prose, social criticism, opposition to totalitar ...

in ''

A Clergyman's Daughter ''A Clergyman's Daughter'' is a 1935 novel by English author George Orwell. It tells the story of Dorothy Hare, the clergyman's daughter of the title, whose life is turned upside down when she suffers an attack of amnesia. It is Orwell's most f ...

''. On the night of 11–12 May 1941, during a widespread German air raid on the district, a bomb demolished a row of cottages in the village and killed 10 civilians. Today, the village is home to numerous

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

s, though most of its

Elm tree Elms are deciduous and semi-deciduous trees comprising the flowering plant genus ''Ulmus'' in the plant family Ulmaceae. They are distributed over most of the Northern Hemisphere, inhabiting the temperate and tropical-montane regions of Nor ...

s were killed off by

Dutch Elm Disease Dutch elm disease (DED) is caused by a member of the sac fungi (Ascomycota) affecting elm trees, and is spread by elm bark beetles. Although believed to be originally native to Asia, the disease was accidentally introduced into Americas, America ...

in the 1960s and 1970s. The parish contains Elmsett Park Wood, an area of

Ancient Woodland In the United Kingdom, an ancient woodland is a woodland that has existed continuously since 1600 or before in England, Wales and Northern Ireland (or 1750 in Scotland). Planting of woodland was uncommon before those dates, so a wood present in 16 ...

classified as an

SSSI A Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) in Great Britain or an Area of Special Scientific Interest (ASSI) in the Isle of Man and Northern Ireland is a conservation designation denoting a protected area in the United Kingdom and Isle of ...

. Borley's Wood, Langham Close Wood and Lucy Wood are also

protected Protection is any measure taken to guard a thing against damage caused by outside forces. Protection can be provided to physical objects, including organisms, to systems, and to intangible things like civil and political rights. Although th ...

Ancient Woodland. In 2005, Elmsett Greenlife Grove Scheme (EGGS) created a community wood near the school There is a small grass airfield in the west of the parish.

St Peter's Church

The parish church of St Peter is a Grade I

Notable people

Jade Holland Cooper Jade Abigail Holland Cooper (born 1986) is a British fashion designer. Early life Her father, Oliver Cooper, is a farmer in Suffolk, and her mother, Miranda (''née'' Holland), worked in London and Paris as a designer, making clothes for Elton J ...

(born 1986/87), British fashion designer *

John Short Hewett John Short Hewett (1781 – 12 December 1835) was an Anglican priest and academic who served as Chaplain and Fellow of Downing College, Cambridge, Fellow of Clare College, Cambridge, Chaplain to the Forces and Rector of Rotherhithe. He came fr ...

, cleric and academic, was Rector of Elmsett

References

External links

Parish council websiteElmsett airfield
{{authority control Villages in Suffolk Babergh District Civil parishes in Suffolk