Excavations in 1954 revealed the adjacent late Anglo-Saxon church of St Bertelin.

[2] The church was collegiate when recorded in the Domesday Book when there were 13 Prebendary Canons.

[3] It became a Royal Peculiar around the thirteenth century, exempt from the jurisdiction of the Bishop, but this caused conflict and culminated in December 1258 when the new bishop Roger de Meyland came to Stafford with many armed men who forced entry and assaulted the canons, chaplains, and clerks.

For several generations the Aston family, who held the Scots title Lord Aston of Forfar, acted as patrons, despite the fact that the entire family converted to the Roman Catholic faith in the 1620s.

When the 2nd Lord Aston, who was very popular locally, died in 1678, hundreds of Protestants attended the burial at St Mary's of a man they all knew well to be a Catholic.