The church is rubble stone and ashlar with stone slate roofs and coped gables. The north and south doorways in the aisles date from the 12th century, indicating that the nave walls predate the 14th century when the arcades were created. The chancel was built in the 15th century and was extended eastwards in the 16th. The tower was added in 1630-2. The church was restored in 1904. The Romanesque elements are the reset and remodelled north and south doorways to the nave aisles, reusing 12th-century shafts and capitals.

The settlement is called Dantesie in the Domesday Survey. The church, which Malmesbury Abbey claimed to possess c1177, appears to have belonged to the abbey before the Norman Conquest. There were 10 hides and land for 6 ploughs at the time of the Domesday Survey, when Robert held it of the abbot. There was a mill, 12 acres of meadow and woodland half a league long. It was valued at £6 pre- and post-Domesday. By 1263, possibly soon after c1177, Malmesbury Abbey had relinquished its claim to the church.

The monuments and fittings in the church are of outstanding quality, including, for example, a very rare 16th-century Doom, showing the Last Judgement, painted on timber panels. In nave and aisles, a complete set of 17th-century scratch-moulded box pews with ball finials survives.