[6] The highest point of the current administrative county of Cambridgeshire, 146 m (479 ft) above sea level, is about 1⁄2 mile (800 m) east of St Swithun's parish church.

[7][8][9] However, as Great Chishill was historically a part of Essex (having been moved in boundary changes in 1895), the historic county top of Cambridgeshire is about 13 miles (21 km) to the east of Great Chishill close to the village of Castle Camps where a point on the disused RAF airfield reaches a height of 128 metres (420 ft) above sea level (grid reference TL 63282 41881).

The place-name "Chishill" or "Chishall" is derived from the Old English Cishella, meaning "gravelly hill".

[citation needed] The church is built of flint with limestone and clunch dressings.

[11] In August 1892 the architect Alfred Hoare Powell cycled from Barrington to see the collapsed tower.

He wrote home "The tower was all built of flints and had an iron band all round it which the vicar and churchwardens agreed in thinking very unslightly and so removed it!!

William and Philip Wightman of London cast the treble, second, third and fourth bells in 1686.

Chishill windmill is about 1,100 yards (1 km) west of the village on the B1039 road to Barley.

[15] In the 1960s Cambridgeshire County Council bought the mill, conserved it and opened to the public.

[16] After seven years the restoration of the Mill was completed at a cost of £100,000; raised from donations and grants from both the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings and Historic England.

The mill was formally opened on 8 June 2019 by pop star Sam Smith, who grew up in the village and worked at the local shop in Barley.

The Guinness Book of Records records that on 10 September 1983 Ben Palmer, a local farmer, and Owen North, the local baker, produced loaves of bread from the wheat in the field in 40 minutes 44 seconds.