[citation needed] The original settlement, consisting of fifty people and six square miles of agricultural settlement, was established prior to the Domesday Survey of 1086 where the town is recorded as Magele on a ridge of high ground, that can be most clearly seen at Red Lion Bridge towards the centre of the town and the Leeds and Liverpool Canal follows it on the plain and the A5147 on the brow.

A church is known to have existed in the area in 1100 although it has been rebuilt at least once and the chapel still stands, in the churchyard of the Victorian St Andrew's and is the oldest ecclesiastical building in Merseyside still in regular use for worship but in 1756 the mediaeval nave of Maghull Chapel was pulled down with a Roman Catholic dual-purpose school-chapel opening in 1890 near Massey's Barn.

At the eastern edge, however, the boundary was ill-defined on the moorland and due to the value of turf from the moss as a vital fuel this caused regular disputes between both Maghull and Melling Manors.

Maghull Manor House was built in 1638 and local tradition has it that Charles II slept there during a visit to the area but by 1780 a new manor house had been built near the site of the original and it still stands in the grounds of Maghull Homes with part of the original moat.

It is also recorded that by 1667 the population of Maghull had increased to 599 with 136 houses and 127 families and by 1770 initial work had begun on the Leeds and Liverpool Canal with the first sod being cut by the Honourable Charles Lewis Mordaunt.

Several other canalside pubs were built over the years; for example, near Hall Lane Bridge there was the Traveller's Rest (demolished 1936) and the Horse and Jockey in Melling.

The arrival of the canal created new industry in the area, notably quarrying of sandstone and clay extraction.

Economic development continued with the Molyneux family (Earls of Sefton) being significantly active in bringing about the Alt Drainage Act in 1779 which resulted in many acres of marshland along the river eventually becoming good agricultural land.

Baines' Directory of Lancashire in 1825 provided the first list of specialist male occupations in Maghull – 1 blacksmith, 1 cooper, 1 tailor, 1 land surveyor and 1 wheelwright.

In 1939, the IRA blew up the swing bridge at Green Lane on the canal but the strategic significance of this has never been fully explained due to Maghull's relative insignificance.

In the Second World War, three bombs landed, one adjacent to King George V Playing Fields, on the site of the former residential home, and one in Ormonde Drive and one in the middle of The Meadows Hotel bowling green A house that was then 16 Park Lane (now 321, the houses were renumbered in the late 1960s or early 1970s), Moss Side, was also destroyed; it was rebuilt in the 1950s.

American and Polish army units were stationed in Maghull and it also held several camps for displaced persons.

In 2010, plans were announced by the Labour government that new housing was needed and Sefton East – where Maghull is – was chosen as one of the locations for the new homes.

To the northwest is Lydiate, to the east Melling, to the south Aintree and Netherton and to the west the Mersey Forest and Sefton village.

Maghull is separated from the rest of the Greater Liverpool sprawl by a green belt which runs across the Switch Island motorway junction and through which flows the River Alt.

Money for the school, which cost £450 7s 0d (£450.35p), was raised by local subscription and the schoolmistress was paid £5 a year, and each scholar had to pay one penny (1d) a month towards the cost of a fire, and tuppence (2d) a month for pens and ink, if they were being taught to write but by 1873 a second storey was added to the school to accommodate the growing population.

There are also three high schools which all contain independent Sixth Form facilities, working together as part of the Maghull Collaborative.

Over the road from the new shopping square was Clent House, then owned by farmer John Cropper who sold the land and property around 1993 to the local authorities.

Cropper's family had owned the land for generations, while their house was fronted by a "picturesque delf, ringed by trees" and was considered among the more beautiful parts of Maghull.

Plans to regenerate the site were set in motion to provide needed amenities for the area, with a new police station and council offices among the suggestions.

The Maghull Community Association on Green Lane provides live entertainment, family fun days and special events such as Christmas parties and ladies nights.

In 2009, Maghull Town Hall was given a large extension costing £8.2million, and which included a library and sports facilities.

The 1st XI captain from the beginning of the 2011 season is batsman John Ring, who led the team to their 3rd First Division Championship in ten years in 2011, returning Maghull to the Premier League for the 2012 campaign.

[9] Several Liverpool and Everton footballers have lived in the area, including Ian Callaghan, Duncan Ferguson, Brian Labone, Steve Staunton, Gordon West, Mick Lyons, Joe Parkinson, Roger Hunt, Tommy Wright, Roger Kenyon, John Hurst, Peter Thompson, Terry Darracott, Steve Heighway, Tony Hateley and Ian St John.