Earl Warenne, Lord of the Manor of Wakefield built a church in the Norman style in 1106.

[4] In the late 1780s John Carr, son of a Horbury stonemason and former Lord Mayor of York,[5] offered to build a new church at his own expense.

[2] A mission church, now St John's Horbury Bridge, was started in a room in what is now the Post Office in 1864.

The curate, Sabine Baring-Gould wrote the hymn "Onward Christian Soldiers" in 1865 for the Whitsun procession to Horbury Church.

As it rejects the ordination of women, the parish receives Alternative Episcopal Oversight from the Bishop of Wakefield (currently Tony Robinson).

[10] The church is built in local ashlar sandstone with a grey slate roof in the Classical style.

[2] The church has a square west tower in four reducing stages surmounted by a colonnaded rotunda with a small fluted, conical spire.

The vestry is to the north-east and has a round-arched entrance and door flanked by tapering pilasters supporting a frieze and cornice.

[2] The pediment is inscribed: HANC AEDEM SACRAH PIETATIS IN DEUM ET AMORIS IN SOLUM NATALE MONIMENTUM PROPRIIS SUMPTIBUS EXTRUXIT JOANNES CARR ARCHITECTUS ANNO CHRISTI MDCCXC1 GLORIA DEO IN EXCELSIS Inside, the bay divisions are marked by fluted Corinthian pilasters.