Churton left Oxford before the tractarian movement arose, but was largely in sympathy with it; he was one of the 543 members of Convocation who thanked the proctors for their attitude with regard to the proposed condemnation of Tract XC.
In 1848 he printed A Letter to Joshua Watson, Esq., in which he established that the Contemplations on the State of Man published in 1684 as a work of Jeremy Taylor's was in reality a rifacimento of the English translation (1672) by Sir Vivian Mullineaux of the treatise by Juan Eusebio Nieremberg, a Spanish Jesuit, called Diferencia de lo Temporal y Eterno.
A paper called A Traveller's Notes on the Basque Churches, printed in the sixth volume of the reports of the Yorkshire Architectural Society, was the result of this tour.
His major work in Spanish studies was Gongora, an Historical and Critical Essay on the Times of Philip III and IV of Spain, with Translations, 1862.
After Churton's death in July 1874, a volume of Poetical Remains was published (1876) by his daughter, containing, besides a number of original poems, versions from Spanish poets and also some from Anglo-Saxon.