The area was included within the ecclesiastical parish of Standish until 1887 when it was granted separate status with the consecration of St Anne's Church.

From earliest times the area had a sparse and scattered population eking out a living from the common and wood and farmlands owned by the church including Burscough Priory, Cockersand Abbey and the Knights Hospitallers until the Dissolution of the Monasteries from 1536, and that of the local gentry included Sir Adam Banastre, Lord of the Manor in 1288 and the Standish, Catterall, Stanley, Rigby, Hulton, Dicconson and Hesketh families, the last being the last lord of the manor in 1798.

[7] In Tudor times only a handful of families existed, possibly as few as 30, the population reached 335 by 1764, and the first official census in 1801 recorded 646.

Handloom weaving and basket making were also undertaken together with primitive coal mining in the Elnup Woods area.

Past industries have included a glue factory and brick and tile works in Appley Bridge and the ICI Roburite Nobel Division Explosives Works (now Orica) at Gathurst from 1941-42 which employed over 500 workers during the Second World War, but was first established south of the River Douglas in 1888.

Today there is little evidence of past industrial activity, though there has been a marked increase in residential development between the 1950s and 1980s, attracted by Shevington's pleasant rural setting, still surrounded by much open land and ancient woods.

Further residential development, on the former Orica site to the south of the village, was completed in the early 2010s and is called Oakwood Meadows.

Unusually, the primary school associated with St. Anne's Church in Shevington is in the neighbouring village of Standish Lower Ground.

Ofsted report, St. John Rigby College Shevington has good communications via the M6 motorway (junction 27) which progressed through the parish in 1963 and the Manchester to Southport Line railway, with stations at Gathurst and Appley Bridge which first opened in the 1850s.

From these stations there are direct rail links to both Southport and Manchester, as well as connections at Wigan to the West Coast Main Line.