Sitting on top of a hill with a slender spire reaching 181 feet (55 m) high, the church is one of the largest in the county, overlooking the town and the surrounding countryside.

The first documented reference to a church in the settlement is in the Liber Eliensis, regarding a gift of land in "Thacstede" to the abbey at Ely by a woman named Æthelgifu sometime between 981 and 1016.

[6][7] Why a modest settlement such as Thaxted in the fourteenth century should have embarked upon building such a grandiose structure has long been a matter of debate and conjecture.

[7] During the period when construction began, many small donations of land were made to the borough, which were immediately sold, presumably for the purpose of funding the new structure.

[10] The construction was sponsored by a number of noble patrons descended from the Clare family who had held the manor of Thaxted since the Norman Conquest: Elizabeth, Lady Clare (1295–1360); Lionel, Duke of Clarence (1338–68); Edmund Mortimer, 3rd Earl of March (1352–81); his grandson, Edmund Mortimer, 5th Earl of March (1391–1425); and King Edward IV (1442–83).

[14] As early as 1561, the Lord Treasurer was requested to provide funds to repair and maintain "such fair edifice, builded of good zeal and devotion of our Predecessors".

[15] During the summer of that year, the spire had been partially dismantled by 45 feet (13.7 m) after being struck by lightning and scaffolding erected to support reconstruction.

[19] The arts and crafts architect, Randall Wells, undertook renovation work in 1909–10, removing cement rendering placed on the exterior during earlier restorations, and strengthening the foundations of the west tower.

The presbytery (the residence for the parish priest) had been endowed by the Bishop of London, Roger Niger, in the thirteenth century, maintained by the monks of Stoke-by-Clare.

[22] The origins of the construction of the present church can be traced to a dispute in 1314 between the then parish priest, William, and the monks of Tilty Abbey, who refused to support the benefice financially.

The priest sued but, threatened with excommunication, withdrew his suit and the increasingly prosperous parishioners resolved to support the church by other means, resulting in an influx of funds, including from Lady Clare, that allowed the rebuilding programme to begin.

[27] In 1647, during the English Civil War, the appointment of a Laudian vicar, Samuel Hall, nominated by Lady Maynard who held the advowson for the benefice, was opposed by Presbyterian Roundhead supporters in the town and blocked by the Parliamentary Committee for Plundered Ministers.

Hall resulted in an incident, described as a "great fight", in the church when some parishioners attempted to obstruct the sequestrators from ejecting their preferred vicar.

Thomas Jee, Thaxted's vicar for over 40 years, was charged with assaulting Marian Harvey, the wife of his curate, Rev.

Jee had received a nominal fine of one shilling for assaulting his physician, Dr. Barnes, at a dinner party at the vicarage in the company of the Harveys.

Dr. Barnes, who described the clergyman of have an "excessively excitable temperament", had accused Jee of indecent misconduct with a ten-year-old girl, whereupon the vicar had seized a poker and threatened the doctor.

[33] In a postscript, in April 1848, Dr Barnes eloped with the sixteen-year-old daughter of Rev and Mrs. Harvey, after the family had left the vicarage in Thaxted and moved to Bayswater.

[36] The existence of a radical vicar supported by an essentially conservative town gave rise to the notion of "the Thaxted tradition" with a series of such appointments until the 1980s.

[37] Conrad's successor as vicar was his son-in-law, Jack Putterill, whose sermons were highly political and who engaged with left-wing causes.

[37] In 1976, the vicar, Peter Elers, declared his homosexuality, which left the "community divided on whether sexual politics represented an extension of, or diversion from, Thaxted's long-standing progressivism.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, it was briefly considered as the seat of a new bishopric that was being planned to alleviate the burden on the Diocese of Saint Albans.

Thaxted's suitability was hampered by poor transport communications and the reluctance of Lady Warwick to give up her patronage of the church living (advowson).

It is the taller and more elaborate of the two, with a ribbed vault with liernes and bosses, a castellated turret and, above the entrance, two escutcheons, carved niches and a figure-frieze.

There is a reredos set into the east wall of the north transept with ogee-headed niches and a frieze above depicting Christ between censing angels.

[44] The font, with an elaborate late fifteenth-century wooden case and cover, stands in the north-western corner of the North Aisle.

[2] The large Stella, or star-shaped candelabra, hanging in the central crossing, is by Randall Wells and was originally designed for St Mary's Primrose Hill but never installed.

[48] A surviving mid-fifteenth century brass of a priest on the floor of the cancel is said to represent Robert Wydow (c.1446–1505), a fifteenth-century poet, musician and clergyman, who was born in Thaxted and held the benefice of the church from 1481 to 1489.

[50] A five-foot high carved statue of St Francis of Assisi set in the east wall of the north transept commemorates Eric Makeham, who was killed in 1917 at Messines Ridge.

[56] Mears & Co London fecit 3 qrs 18 lbs Mears & Co London fecit 1 qr 22 lbs Bell I ring for justice in all the Earth And I John saw the Holy City of Jerusalem Coming down from God out of Heaven Prepared as a bride adorned for her husband Recast by voluntary subscription 1778 Mears & Co London fecit Gillett & Johnston Croyden refecit 1949 Jack Putterill – Vicar Stanley Wilson / William Barker – Churchwardens Donors: The People of Thaxted and friends 1 qr 1 lb Bell or the Fellowship Bell Praise him in the cymbals and dances Praise him upon the strings and pipe Tho.

In 1227, the vicarage was created by Eustace, Bishop of London, after the town parishioners complained about the lack of a resident priest;[7] his successor, Roger Niger, issued a more detailed ordination.