The placename 'Ecclesfield' meaning 'open country in which a British church stood' is first recorded in the 1086 Domesday Book (Smith 1961, 245). There is archaeological evidence for a pre-Norman foundation here in the form of a carved cross shaft discovered near the west door in 1893 (SMR PRN 172). The present church has elements (nave piers and west doorway) from the Early English period c.1200AD - much of the remainder of the building and parts of its interior (which includes fine chantry chapels, parclose screens, miserecords and a medieval rood screen) dates to the Perpendicular (c1380-c1520AD) (Pevsner 1967, 189). Legibility of previous character types is uncertain as we have no evidence as yet for earlier landscapes.