[4] By 1617 a timber-framed chapel was present on the site which consisted of a nave and a chancel with a south aisle belonging to the Booths of Twemlow.

The first documented mention of Goostrey is in the Domesday Book (1086), when most of the parish was held by William Fitz Nigel, Baron of Halton, and by Hugh de Mara, another follower of the Earl of Chester.

[4] The medieval history of the parish is recorded in grants and agreements which regulated the relations between the abbey at Chester and their local tenants.

For example, in 1286 Honde Merlun broke into the church at Goostrey and took away all the ornaments; or when five brothers of William Eaton of Blackden were slain together and buried in the chapelyard in 1385.

The parishioners of Goostrey frequently found the way to Sandbach impassable because of floods and must have rejoiced when the five mile (8 km) journey across the Rivers Dane and Croco was no longer necessary.

They contain a few interesting notes, such as one in 1661 when Marie Worthington, the wife of the minister of Goostrey, died, and after the entry is written the word 'scould' in a different ink.

At the back of the volume, among a list of notices relating to collections made in the chapelry, are documented donations sent to towns like Ripon in Yorkshire or Bridgnorth in Shropshire, as well as one contribution sent to Hugh Evans 'having his house and his household goods burnt in the county of Salop'.

The registers also document how everyone agreed to the appointment of Mr Henry Newcome as minister on 7 October 1648, and it seems that even into the 18th century the inhabitants had some say in which clergyman was given the living of Goostrey, even though the final decision must have rested then as now with the vicar of Sandbach.

Mr Newcome was a strict puritan, and forbade two of his most prominent parishioners from coming to Holy Communion for their frequent drinking.

No doubt the continual repairing and the alterations when new aisles were added to accommodate the gentry had made a thorough rebuilding necessary, but the 18th century was no respector of ancient buildings.

The stained glass, which may aptly be called post-Raphaelite, dates from about 1876; the east window being given in memory of Egerton Leigh, the second of that name to live at Jodrell Hall, the south west window being in memory of Mary Susan Armitstead, the young wife of William George, vicar of Goostrey from 1860 to 1907.

The last of these schoolmasters, Jonathan Harding (1781–1862), is buried by the west end of the church; he had held his office for fifty two years.

[7][10] John Hulse, incumbent in the village from 1735 to 1754, left money to Cambridge University to found a professorial chair, which is still known by his name.

The Armitsteads, who provided four vicars of Goostrey, three successively from 1859 to 1923, came from Horton in Ribblesdale in the middle of the 18th century Lawrence, whose memorial is on the north wall, purchased the Hermitage and Cranage estates.