The parish has a total collective population of 1,084 (2011) spread across 500 properties (2020), with Appleby Magna its largest settlement.

There was no single settlement, but a scattering of round houses, whose inhabitants farmed the land south of the River Mease.

[4] A short distance to the east, near the White House Farm, crop marks revealed a rectangular enclosure believed to be an Iron Age site.

[5] Artifacts included coins from the reigns of Constantine I(307-337) and Magnentius (350-353); pottery fragments dating from the late 4th century; and evidence of corn drying ovens and three farm buildings.

Roof tiles, a corroded knife blade, copper pins, an iron hobnail, and fragments of quern stones were also found, as well as animal bones indicating that cattle, sheep, pigs, cats and dogs were kept on the farm.

The name of the neighbouring village of Stretton en le Field suggests that a Roman road ran through the parish, but this has not been confirmed.

[8] The village belonged to the Abbey of Burton,[9] Henry de Ferrers and Lady Godiva, of Coventry, and was worth 90 shillings (£4.50).

Most of the tombs have been removed but the Alabaster effigies of Sir Edmund de Appleby and his wife Joan, dating from 1375, still survive.

Charles Moore is recorded as "Lord of the manor of Appleby Parva" in 1599,[15] although the exact date of his arrival to the village is unknown.

[15] Sir John was unquestionably the most successful, becoming friends with Charles II, as well as Lord Mayor and subsequently Alderman of London.

Sir John Moore died childless, but before his death chose to use his money for the benefit of the children of his home parish, Appleby.

The "Misses Moores" (husbandless sisters to the squire) built the almshouses in 1839, to save their elderly servants from having to go into the workhouse.

The village sits on the edge of the South Derbyshire Coalfields, and coal mining became an increasingly important area of employment up to the mid 20th century.

In the case of the nave altar, the priest probably stood under the chancel arch and celebrated the mass facing the people.

If the altar was just east of the chancel arch, the priest may still have celebrated westward from a position in the middle of the chancel’[6]The earliest surviving portion of the present church is St. Helen's Chapel (also known as the De Appleby Chapel), which is also the earliest surviving building in the village; dating from the 13th or very early 14th century, but its exact date of construction is unknown.

[17] Most of the tombs have been removed but the alabaster effigies of Sir Edmund de Appleby and his wife Joan, dating from 1375, still survive.

Another famous resident of the Moat House was Joyce de Appleby, who became a Protestant martyr after she was burnt at the stake by 'Bloody Mary' in Lichfield Market Place, for not converting to Catholicism.

His nephew, Francis (son of his brother Richard), died childless, ending the male line of the de Appleby family.

Edward Griffyn of Dingley in Northamptonshire sold the property to Wolstan Dixie of London through a series of legal processes, covenants, fines and recoveries from November 1598.

The Dixies then granted the capital messuage and its attached lands to Market Bosworth Free School, who leased it to a succession of tenants for an initial yearly rent of £50.

This time the 'Mannor Place or capital messuage of Appulbie the greate' was granted to Thomas and William Hartill of Stretton-en-le-field as "feoffees of the Grammar School".

The tenants were not to 'lopp, topp shred...nor putt down' any oak, ash, elm or fruit trees, except for getting an annual allowance of timber for repairing the premises.

In October 1649 another lease drawn up for eighty years reinforced these rights, inserting provision for the lessees, Dixie, Farmer and Saunders.

In June 1715 the ‘Manor House’ with all lands appertaining and 'three water grist mills' with fishing rights were leased to Mathew White of Great Appleby.

The house was occupied by the Gothard family for much of the 19th century before being finally sold in the 1960s, by which time many of the outbuildings the kitchens had fallen into a state of disrepair and had to be demolished.

The north-west quarter of the field (towards the modern rectory) shows ridge-and-furrow strips (i.e. ‘lands’ or ‘londs’), running roughly north–south and these appear to be the oldest earthwork preserved in the pasture as the other disturbances cut across them.

These ridge-and-furrow strips are a remnant of the medieval system of agriculture in which farming land was organised in open fields.

Other banks, ditches and irregular earthworks on the southern half of the modern field, towards Bowleys Lane, may include fish ponds.

Built in 1697, the school was founded by Lord Mayor and Alderman of London, Sir John Moore, as a gift to his home village.

Former pasture donated by the former Head Master of Appleby Magna School, Jack Smith, who wanted a new native woodland planted in memory of his late wife Georgina.