Elmswell 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. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, w ...

in the county of

Suffolk Suffolk ( ) is a ceremonial county in the East of England and East Anglia. It is bordered by Norfolk to the north, the North Sea to the east, Essex to the south, and Cambridgeshire to the west. Ipswich is the largest settlement and the county ...

, England.OS Explorer map 211: Bury St.Edmunds and Stowmarket Scale: 1:25 000. Publisher:Ordnance Survey – Southampton A2 edition. Publishing Date:2008. It is situated halfway between

Bury St. Edmunds Bury St Edmunds (), commonly referred to locally as ''Bury,'' is a cathedral as well as market town and civil parish in the West Suffolk district, in the county of Suffolk, England.OS Explorer map 211: Bury St. Edmunds and Stowmarket Scale: . P ...

and

Stowmarket Stowmarket ( ) is a market town and civil parish in the Mid Suffolk district of Suffolk, England,OS Explorer map 211: Bury St.Edmunds and Stowmarket Scale: 1:25 000. Publisher:Ordnance Survey – Southampton A2 edition. Publishing Date:2008. o ...

and lies just to the north of the A14 road. The history of the village can be traced as far back as the Roman times based on a site containing a pottery kiln dated around the third century. According to the Oxford Dictionary of English Place-Names the origin of Elmswell or in its

Old English Old English ( or , or ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. It developed from the languages brought to Great Britain by Anglo-S ...

form Elmswella, as referred to in the

Domesday Book Domesday Book ( ; the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book") is a manuscript record of the Great Survey of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 at the behest of William the Conqueror. The manuscript was originally known by ...

of 1086 comes from 'Spring or Stream where elm-trees grow. The place name Elmswella is formed by the conjunction of elm + wella, where wella is

for stream. A huge village green – Butten Haugh Green – once formed the centre of Elmswell. However, the arrival of the railway in 1846 and the bacon factory in 1911, meant the green now has houses built on it. The 1881 census showed that the number of dwellings in the village was 196 and the population was 761.

Present Elmswell

The village was struck by an F1/T2 tornado on 23 November 1981, as part of the record-breaking nationwide tornado outbreak on that day. Currently, the number of houses is over 2000 and the number of inhabitants is over 4750. The Church of St John the Divine in Church Hill was mentioned in the

. Sir Robert Gardiner, former

Lord Chief Justice of Ireland The Court of King's Bench (or Court of Queen's Bench during the reign of a Queen) was one of the senior courts of common law in Ireland. It was a mirror of the Court of King's Bench in England. The Lord Chief Justice was the most senior judge ...

, the lord of the manor, who died in 1620, built

almshouses An almshouse (also known as a bede-house, poorhouse, or hospital) is charitable organization, charitable public housing, housing provided to people in a particular community, especially during the Middle Ages. They were often built for the povert ...

next to the church and left them to three women from Elmswell and three from the nearby village of Norton. He is buried in St John the Divine. The village has had a

railway station Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport using wheeled vehicles running in railway track, tracks, which usually consist of two parallel steel railway track, rails. Rail transport is one of the two primary means of ...

since 1846, on the line between

Bury St Edmunds Bury St Edmunds (), commonly referred to locally as ''Bury,'' is a cathedral as well as market town and civil parish in the West Suffolk District, West Suffolk district, in the county of Suffolk, England.OS Explorer map 211: Bury St. Edmunds an ...

and

Ipswich Ipswich () is a port town and Borough status in the United Kingdom, borough in Suffolk, England. It is the county town, and largest in Suffolk, followed by Lowestoft and Bury St Edmunds, and the third-largest population centre in East Anglia, ...

. There is a wildlife area at Kiln Meadow, and two pubs – The Tavern and The Fox - exist in the village. Elmswell was named Suffolk's village of the year in 2008 beating Cockfield and Fressingfield into second and third place respectively.

References

External links

*
Official Elmswell Parish Site
Villages in Suffolk Civil parishes in Suffolk Mid Suffolk District {{Suffolk-geo-stub