The church has an aisled nave and is mostly Early English with a Perpendicular W tower, though much restored in 1859-60 and 1882-3 (Pevsner and Neave 1995, 584). There is reused Romanesque stone in the tower (Pevsner and Neave 1995, 585; Wareham 1960). Some carved 12th-century fragments, formerly in the vicarage garden and assumed to have come from the church, were recorded and photographed before being buried nearby in 2001.

In Domesday Book, there were five landholders: Nigel who had 4 carucates; Radulfus de Mortuo-Mari who had 10, Gislebert Tison who had 23, Hugh son of Baldric who had 2, and Count Alan (VCH II, 224, 269, 272, 277, 317). The entry for Gislebert Tison mentions that there was a church and a priest.

The advowson of Kirk Ella had originally been given by Gilbert Tison to Selby Abbey, and was confirmed to that house by Richard I. In 1325-6 the advowson was given by Thomas Wake to his foundation of Haltemprice priory. In 1328 the church was appropriated to the priory. Things were not settled till 1352 (VCH III, 213).

Wareham (1960, 38-9) provides documentary connections between the archbishop Roger of Pont l'Eveque, Selby Abbey and the rector of Elveley sometime around 1181.

The doorway in William Wareham's published reconstruction drawing, based on the fragments from the vicarage garden, recalls the late-12th-century N and W doorways of the nave of Selby Abbey (YW), (Wareham 1960, 24).

Wareham's article concentrates on the procedure adopted to determine the form of the five arch orders and a label in his reconstruction. Four capitals of different designs are shown. The orders appear to be numbered inconsistently in the article. The various types of voussoir are not described separately, and it is not easy to match the designs on the fragments in the photographs with those in the reconstruction (Plate VII). The third order of voussoirs is not shown in Wareham's drawing, and no equivalent of the first order is evident among the available photographs. The second and fifth orders seem very alike, and perhaps were only distinguishable by their geometry. The label is illustrated in a photograph in the article (plate IV, 4).