Burton is a large village at the S end of the Wirral peninsula, 7 miles NW of Chester. It is built along minor roads to the W of the main A540 road that links Chester to Heswall and Hoylake. As a picturesque village within reach of Liverpool, Birkenhead and Chester its properties are highly sought-after, and it has been ranked eighth in a recent market-research survey of super-rich communities, with millionaires making up 16% of its population. St Nicholas’s church stands in an elevated position overlooking the village centre, and consists of a W tower with a porch, and a four-bay nave that is continuous with a two-bay chancel, with no chancel arch dividing the two. On the N is an aisle and this continues alongside the chancel as the Massey Chapel. Construction is of red sandstone with grey slate roofs. The church is largely of 1721, although there are Norman remains in the form of loose stones described below.

Burton was held by the Bishop of Lichfield in 1066, and by Bishop Robert of Chester in 1086 (the see having moved in the interim). A weekly market and annual fair on the feast of St James the Apostle were granted by Edward I to Walter de Langeton, Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield, in 1299. They are thought to have ceased to operate by 1500.

The two capitals presumably came from the arcade of an earlier church.