 On 26 August 1539, the Abbess was forced to surrender the Abbey, the manor of Elstow and all 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, even after the dissolution, the building was being considered for elevation to cathedral status, but this never transpired.South of the village, from 1942 to 1946, was the site of the munitions factory ROF Elstow, about which the author H.E.Bates wrote "The Tinkers of Elstow" (1946).