The parish is at an altitude of 75 to 245 metres (approximately 250 to 800 feet) and covers an area of 1,175 hectares (2,900 acres); the underlying geology is chalk.

[1] The village, which contains a mix of buildings of different ages and styles, is spread along four lanes which meet here.

The 13th- to 14th-century parish church has a pinnacled tower with battlements, numerous gargoyles[4] and a canonical sundial.

In 1086, in the Domesday Book Cheselbourne was recorded as Ceseburne;[5] it had 36 households, 10 acres (4.0 ha) of meadow and one mill.

[6] Cheselbourne used to be the site of a tradition known as "Treading in the Wheat", in which young women from the village would walk the fields on Palm Sunday, dressed in white.