The church was built in the mid-1740s by John Fane, the 7th Earl of Westmorland, following his removal of the village's 12th century place of worship to allow for the enlargement of Mereworth Castle.

The Neo-Palladian style stone structure has been described as "the outstanding 18th-century church in the county, in scale, ambition and architectural interest".

[1] The architect is unknown, but prominent Palladian-era figures such as Henry Flitcroft, James Gibbs and Roger Morris have been suggested.

Many internal fixtures survive from the medieval church, including heraldic stained glass and a series of high-quality brass and stone memorials.

Alterations were made several times in the 19th and 20th centuries, including repairs to wartime bomb damage, and restoration work undertaken in 2009.

He found in favour of de Mereworth, but the parson of the church was to pay the sum of 40s per annum to the priory as a perpetual benefice.

[12] Thomas Benge Burr in his History of Tunbridge Wells (1766) said that the church "will bear, and indeed richly deserves, the attentive inspection of the curious traveller".

The bells were repaired in 1885 and a clock was installed in the base of the lantern at the top of the tower in 1894, in memory of Eliot Stapleton, rector of Mereworth from 1874 to 1892.

A plan by the architect George Crickmay, dated 1896, to extend the church eastwards by building an apse of the same proportions as the west portico was not carried out.

[21] Major repairs were carried out to the spire in 1946–47 under the supervision of architect Kenneth Dalgleish, following damage sustained during the Second World War.

[28] The church is of blocks of Kentish ragstone with dressed ashlar Wealden sandstone used for the porch columns, quoins and tower.

St Paul's, Covent Garden in London, an early Palladian church by Inigo Jones, was the model for the design,[1][22] which was then "purified by neo-Palladian theory".

[23] Rising above the roof at the west end of the church is a tall tower topped with a steeple flanked by decorative urns.

The stone structure, with its square base supporting octagonal upper stages with columned sides and a balustrade, is so similar to the steeple at St Giles in the Fields[23][26] that the Buildings of England series says that it was "copied almost directly" from that church.

[30] Beyond the vestibule is a wide aisled nave, seven bays long, its barrel-vaulted ceiling painted with trompe-l'œil coffering ("not very convincingly" according to the Buildings of England guide),[29] a chancel and a side chapel.

The nave and aisles are separated by painted marble-effect stone Doric columns,[23][26][29] which were originally partly panelled,[29] They support a horizontal entablature rather than the more usual arches.

[29] At the east end is a grandiose lunette or "Diocletian window", in imitation of the type used at Roman baths,[29] filling the space left clear by the arch of the barrel vault.

[40] As a Grade I listed building, the church is considered by English Heritage to be of "exceptional interest" and greater than national importance.