[2] The church stands in the centre of the village,[3] in an elevated position on Barrow Hill, which was an ancient burial ground.

Raymond Richards considered it to be one of the most beautiful churches in the county, and believed it was the only one in England to be dedicated to Saint Bertoline.

About 20 Parliamentary supporters had taken refuge in the church when Royalist forces under the command of Lord Byron started a fire.

[5][7][8] Until 200 years ago it was the parish church of a vast area of southeast Cheshire, and the village was the centre of a very scattered community.

[citation needed] The Parochial Church Council has recently overseen the completion of the second stage of a major restoration.

[1] Its oldest part is a Norman blocked doorway in the north wall sited in a gap between the end of the aisle and the vestry,[10] which was moved to its present position in the 19th century.

[11] Many of the old fittings were lost in the 1852–54 restoration but the parclose screen which formerly divided the Crewe Chapel from the chancel was preserved,[5] and it now encloses the organ at the east end of the north aisle.

[5] In the Crewe Chapel is the recumbent alabaster effigy of Sir Robert de Foulshurst, who distinguished himself at the Battle of Poitiers, dressed as a knight in armour with a gorget of mail, a conical helmet and a collar of esses.

[15] The churchyard contains the memorials of two local brothers who were both soldiers in the New Zealand Expeditionary Force of World War I and who were killed in Gallipoli.

[17] The church is an important location in the novel Red Shift by Alan Garner, which deals largely with the Barthomley massacre of 1643.