Ellistown is named after Colonel Joseph Joel Ellis of London, but its history predates him.

Swinfen was where the Abbot's bailiff lived and was only a small mud and wattle built settlement with three strip fields surrounded by Charnwood Forest.

When the monasteries were dissolved for Henry VIII, Garendon Abbey surrendered its lands to the Crown which then sold or let them.

[3] The site of the medieval grange house is almost 1 mile (1.6 km) south of Ellistown village.

The pony trains brought coal from Ibstock Colliery, turning at the crossroads towards Bagworth to avoid the turnpikes, and then on to Leicester via Aylestone.

The Slip Inn on Whitehill Road near where the first pit was sunk was a favoured stopping point for the pony trains.

John Curtis in his account of the county in 1831 mentions Pickering's Grange as a hamlet in the parish of Ibstock.

Just to the north of Hugglescote a junction was added in 1883, when the Charnwood Forest Railway opened from here to Loughborough Derby Road.

On their arrival the Ellis family took over the Inn converting it into their servants' quarters and adding accommodation for themselves as well as stables and a carriage house.

Around here was very little in the way of buildings at this time: Johnny Battram's cottage, two farms along Whitehill Lane and the railway spur that served Ibstock Colliery.

Towards the end of their history Ellistown West Terraces had a great deal of iron banding and brick supports attached to them to resist the effect of mining subsidence that prevails in this area.

After Colonel Ellis died, the colliery, brickworks and estate were carried on by trustees under Orders of the Court of Chancery until 1936.

In 1931 the LMS withdrew passenger services from the Ashby and Nuneaton and Charnwood Forest lines and closed Hugglescote station.

[5] In 1964 BR withdrew passenger services from the Leicester to Burton line and closed Bagworth and Ellistown station.

Between late 1999 to mid-2012 Ellistown expanded significantly with the addition of new housing estates on its eastern side between Whitehill Road and Beveridge Lane.

Recently the parish council has introduced a gala day that is held every August on South Street park.