OS grid reference TR115449 Dialling code 01233 | Sovereign state United Kingdom Local time Thursday 1:07 PM District Shepway | |
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Population 292 (parish, 2001 Census) Weather 15°C, Wind W at 24 km/h, 61% Humidity | ||
Elmsted is a village and civil parish in the Shepway District of Kent, England. It is located west of Stone Street (the B2068), the Roman road which today takes traffic between Canterbury and Lympne. Within the parish are the settlements of Bodsham, North Leigh and Evington. There are six elected members of the Parish Council.
Contents
Map of Elmsted, Ashford, UK
The parishes name, Elmsted, is formed of two words. Elm refers to the large number of Elm trees that grew there in Saxon times. The second part sted comes from the Saxon word stede meaning 'place'.
Geography
Elmsted is a small parish encompassing an area of approximately 10 km square with its population scattered in small hamlets like Bodsham, North Leigh and Elmsted Court. Settlements are largely at the top of the chalky down land with surrounding, lowland areas being used for grazing Cattle and Sheep. In these lower areas the ground contains far more in the way of clay and flint deposits than chalk. The parish boundaries are between a kilometer and two kilometers from the Parish church St James. on its eastern boundary largely follows parallel to the Roman Road Stone Street though it dips into the hamlets of Stelling Minnis and into Sixmile cottages.[1]
The parish is 11 kilometers east of Ashford which is the nearest town.
Before 1800
The parish was recorded in the doomsday book.
Post 1800
In the 1870s Snodsbury the Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales described Elmsted as
"ELMSTEAD, a parish in Elham district, Kent; 4½ miles ESE of Wye r. station, and 6½ ENE of Ashford. It has a post office under Ashford, and a fair on 25 July. Acres, 2, 692. Real property, £2, 692. Pop., 492. Houses, 93. The property is divided among a few. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Canterbury. Value, £80. Patron, the Archbishop of Canterbury. The church is old but good."
St James the Great
The Anglican church is dedicated to St James the Great and is Grade I listed with an unusual wooden medieval belfry on the tower. The local school is Bodsham Church of England Primary School.
Demographics
In 2011 according to the census data there were 156 females and 163 males living in the parish.