[3] According to Sir Peter Leycester, the name Great Budworth comes from the Old Saxon words bode ("dwelling") and wurth ("a place by water").

The parish contained nineteen townships: Budworth, Anderton, Appleton-cum-Hull, Aston-juxta-Budworth, Barnton, Barterton, or Bartington, Cogfoall, Comberbach, Dutton, Little-Leigh, Marbury, Marston, Pickmere, Stretton, Nether-Tabley, Over-Witley, Nether Witley, and Wincham.

[7] In 1130, St Mary and All Saints Church was given to the Augustinian canon of Norton Priory[8] by William FitzNigel, Constable of Chester and Baron of Halton.

[9] After the dissolution of the monasteries, King Henry VIII granted the estate to John Grimsditch.

[13] To this end he commissioned architects including William Nesfield and John Douglas to work on buildings in the village.

[21] The architectural historian Nikolaus Pevsner considered it to be "one of the most satisfactory Perpendicular churches in Cheshire".

[24] Built with brown brick with some timber framing, and clay tile roofs the house faces west.

[26] Belmont Hall in this parish was built by J. H. Smith-Barry Esq., who deposited in it his valuable collection of pictures and statues, afterwards removed to Marbury.

[28] The George and Dragon pub, another Grade II listed building,[29] was initially built as a simple three-bay Georgian inn.

He added tall rubbed chimneys, mullioned windows and a steep pyramidal turret.

Its other architectural features comprise a projecting two-storey porch with oak post-and-rail fence inscribed with a number of sayings on either side, lateral bay with four-light mullioned window in the lower storey and a three-light mullioned window in the upper storey, a tall rubbed brick chimneystack, and the inn sign located diagonally from the right corner.

[17] In Great Budworth, the "soul cake" may be a glass of beer or other sustenance; into it comes the devil, or Beelzebub, now "Belshy Bob".

[36] The village is a popular location for films and television including Cluedo,[11] and more recently a NatWest advert and the 2019 BBC drama War of the Worlds.