The village is situated on the estate of the Duke of Westminster who maintains his ancestral home at nearby Eaton Hall.

[2] It is believed that the name of the village derives from the Primitive Welsh eglẹ̄s (a church) and the Old English tūn (a settlement, farmstead or estate).

[4] The settlement consisted of seven households (four villagers, one smallholder and two slaves) on land under the ownership of Gilbert de Venables ('Gilbert the hunter').

[6] The Normans built an early motte castle at Eccleston, one of a series forming a defence against Welsh raids on the farmlands of Cheshire, and emphasising the new post-Conquest order.

The Cheshire volume of the Buildings of England series describes it as "the prime Eaton estate village" and "a showpiece".

[8] Many of the buildings, including St Mary's School and the shelter in the middle of the road junction at the centre of the village, were designed by John Douglas, the favoured architect of the Grosvenor family at the time.

Also buried here are Alfred Ernest Ind VC, who died on 29 November 1916,[12] Sir Henry Nelson Clowes KCVO (1911–1993), Sir Philip Hay KCVO (1918–1986), Private Secretary to the Duchess of Kent, and his wife Dame Margaret Katherine Hay DCVO (1918–1975), Woman of the Bedchamber to Queen Elizabeth II, a granddaughter of 1st Duke of Westminster.