Elsich stands close to Seifton at the entry to the Corve Dale and the house presents a highly picturesque exterior of broad limestone gables, diagonally set brick chimney shafts rising above the roofs, and the distinctive polygonal stair turret which includes a timber-framed attic and hipped roof. It originally had a moat and a remnant remains as a pond to the north-west of the house, on the opposite side of what is now a drive. The house itself is composed of two distinct dates: the south-east wing with stair turret being the earlier part of the building, including the former hall (now drawing room). This part of the house retains a timber-framed north-west gable which is still externally visible. The north-west wing and the central range that links this to the older part are apparently later and of circa 1600. The house suffered a devastating fire of the south-east wing in 1976 so what one sees today is largely the result of late twentieth-century restoration.

The Baldwyns are said to have been seated at Elsich from the reign of Richard II and in the late sixteenth century William Baldwyn, son of John Baldwyn, Yeoman of the Crown (living 1491) served as Cup-bearer to Queen Mary. Rebuilding of the house circa 1600 is said to have been commissioned by William Baldwyn’s brother, Richard Baldwyn II of Diddlebury, for his younger son, William. A marriage settlement for the latter, dated 1613, includes mention of the ‘capital messuage and mansion house called by the name of Elsich’. Richard Baldwyn II had married Margery, the daughter of Lawrence Ludlow of the More Hall, in 1545 at Shipton. His work at Elsich may have been the work of masons who were also engaged in the building of Shipton Hall since Elsich, like that house, has the distinctive stepped windows in the broad south-east facing gabled range and in the projecting gable of the lower joining range, which comprise three lower mullioned lights and a central light above. The house was originally roofed with stone slates – rather than the present tiles – and was recorded as still having the vernacular covering as late as 1910.

Thomas Baldwyn (d. 1614), the builder’s elder son, was imprisoned at the Tower of London in 1585, as his monument in Diddlebury Church recalls, supposedly for assisting in a plot to liberate Mary Queen of Scots.