It was probably the rich parent church that was granted by king Henry I to Augustinian canons sometime between 1116 and 1147, becoming the priory of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

The falling spire damaged the font and the roof, which was not repaired until 1782, destroying the angels in the west end bays.

They have been associated with the "Black Shuck" legend, and this has been used as a title of a song by the Lowestoft rock group The Darkness, which mentions Blythburgh in the lyrics.

While the fabric was repaired, modern taste ruled out any return to the 15th-century colour scheme of the church; the thirty-six angels, set back to back in pairs on the arch-braced, firred, tie-beam roof had been brightly painted in red and green with much use made of tin foil and gold leaf.

The church has a two-manual pipe organ by the company Bishop and Son, dating from 1951, which was almost completely rebuilt in 2003 by Rodney Briscoe.

[5] In 1962 the acoustic value of the building was discovered by Benjamin Britten, and some of the concerts of the Aldeburgh Festival have been performed in the church.