The
Countess Judith of Lens, niece of
William the Conqueror, founded a
Benedictine nunnery in Elstow in the year 1078. The
Moot Hall, is an important example of
timber frame construction, was built 1440-50 and extended sometime before 1539. From about 1810, it was used as a day school and a night school, until the Education Act 1872 lead to the building of a school in Elstow's High Street. From 1810 to 1910, Moot Hall was used as a chapel and Sunday school for the Elstow congregation of the Bunyan Meeting church. It is now a registered Ancient Monument and is used as a museum of 17th century life and as a small music events venue. In 1538,
Elstow Abbey was valued as being the eighth richest nunnery in England. On 26 August 1539, the
Abbess surrendered the Abbey, the manor of Elstow and the Abbey's other lands and estates throughout England, to
King Henry VIII, as part of his
Dissolution of the Monasteries. So large and significant was the Abbey at Elstow that, in the 16th century,
Bishop Stephen Gardiner of
Winchester sponsored a bill in Parliament to make it a cathedral for Bedfordshire, but this motion never received the royal assent. South of the village, a World War II munitions factory called
ROF Elstow operated from 1942 to 1946, Author
H.E. Bates wrote about it in
The Tinkers of Elstow (1946). == Elstow today ==