The church is dedicated to Botolph, a seventh-century abbot in East Anglia, who is a patron saint of travellers.

The present building mostly dates from the fourteenth century and is built of flint and rubble with Barnack stone dressing.

The chapel also commemorates the First Eastern General Hospital, built at the outbreak of the First World War on what is now the Cambridge University Library site.

[1] There are memorials to Thomas Playfere (1609, Lady Margaret's Professor of Divinity), James Essex (architect), members of the Darwin family, and Sir Ernest Barker.

[2] In the early hours of 4 February 2020 the church was broken into resulting in the destruction of an 1870 stained glass window by Charles Kempe, depicting Botolph and Margaret of Antioch.