The church tops the NE side of Churchdown or Chosen Hill, an outlier of the Cotswold escarpment that reaches 511 ft or 155 m above sea level. The hill is NE of Gloucester and W of the M5. The village of Churchdown lies to the NE of the hill, largely in the plain. There are two modern churches (St Andrew and St John) serving the village; the medieval church on the hill nevertheless has regular services and an active graveyard. There are banks of an Iron Age fort adjacent, and the church itself is believed to have been partly constructed on an artificial mound. Stone used is largely ashlar limestone, but several other types can be seen in the walls.

The building comprises a chancel, a nave with S arcade and N porch (no longer in use as the entrance), and a post-medieval W tower (for a plan, see Smithe 1888-9, plate XVII, before p. 274). Only the nave, N porch and S aisle are related to the 12thc church.

There are remains of at least one Romanesque doorway visible as reset voussoirs and capitals, and there is a Transitional S arcade. Verey et al. (2002) describes the arcade and the N porch as 13thc.

The church is not mentioned in DB (Waters 1989 revd. 2004, 2018, 2).

At some time before the Conquest the manor had been given to the priory of St Oswald, Gloucester, but, along with 'a considerable portion of the lands of the canons', it had then been acquired by archbishop Stigand. After his fall in 1070, it was retained by the archbishop of York, Thomas of Bayeux, and this territory became known as the barony of Churchdown (VCH Gloucs. II, 84; Taylor, Domesday Survey of Gloucestershire, 95; Thompson 1921)

Doorway voussoirs and other remnants, as described in Smithe 1888-9, 280-1: 'Late Norman, of lozenges bordered with beads or studs, as is usually found at that time.' The author gives a drawing (Pl XVI, fig. 2). In some of the voussoirs is what Smithe describes as 'a man's face, as though looking out of a window, the features grotesque and the hands on each side of the face as though grasping the bar of the window'. Smithe indicates that this face motif alternates within the reset row of chevron voussoirs with a 'conventional acanthus' motif, or sometimes a fruit like a 'corn cob'. He argues that these are the remains of the N doorway that preceded the N porch. Further voussoirs to complete the semi-circular arch had been identified reset in the following places (p. 281, note 1): 1, in the E wall of the porch inside; 2, between belfry and tower; 3, in NE window of nave; 4, in W end of aisle. The columns and inverted capitals in the N porch he suggests were part of the doorway. Smithe also noted a stencilled pattern in 'marone' on part of the arches of the arcade, p. 278 and Pl. XVI, no. 3.

At English Bicknor, Gloucestershire, there are men's heads in foliage capitals on the S arcade. The men's heads in two of the reset chevron voussoirs at Churchdown are unusual, but heads were carved in the spandrels at Fridaythorpe in the East Riding of Yorkshire, and the style of 'hat', or pointed hood, is also seen on capitals in the nave at Helmsley, North Riding; there the hats are not restricted by the shape of the space. The foliage spray in further spandrels is also seen in Yorkshire work, for example, at Askham Bryan, but may have been more generally used in Gloucestershire too, of course. The similarities with Yorkshire work, on the other hand, might be connected to the patronage of the archbishops of York.

The detail of the man's hands holding branches ('the bar of the window' as Smithe describes it) suggests that the heads are original; the motif of a man holding up stems of foliage in both hands is occasionally seen more widely.

The likely date for the reset piece of star pattern would probably pre-date any work done for Roger of Pont L’Eveque, archbishop from 1154; his own investment in the church may be represented by the voussoirs or the arcade.