The word maple plainly refers to the deciduous species of tree native to the area, with tūn being a descriptive term for an enclosure, a farmstead, a village or an estate.

[4] In the early 1870s, John Marius Wilson described the village in the Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales.

This is the description he gave the village: Transcripts from Kelly's Directory of the Counties of Derby, Notts, Leicester and Rutland described both a post office and a school as follows; However, both of the above have since been closed.

Further information on the church after that point was relatively scarce until a survey was conducted in the reign of Edward VI in 1547.

The current building was built in the mid-18th century, one hundred years after the Parliamentary Commissioners declared that the church was 'fit to be disused' in 1650.

"domestic offices or services" and "general commodities" are the next two biggest sectors, each with 26 people from the parish recording these as their occupations.