Calverley lies midway between Bradford and Leeds and overlooks the River Aire. Built in local gritstone, the large church of St Wilfrid appears to be mostly late medieval, and was restored 1869-70. It has a chancel with a N vestry and chapel, an aisled nave with a porch, and a W tower. One blocked window in the S wall of the nave shows that there was an earlier aisleless church, although the window head is undateable. Sculpture appears only on numerous grave-slabs found during the 19thc. building works (Ryder 1991; 1993).

There is no mention of a church at Calverley in the Domesday Book. In 1166 some estate is held from de Lacy.

Peter Ryder, 1993, 145, says: 'The nave walls are of 11th or early 12th-century date, but only one architectural feature has survived from that period: a blocked window above the south arcade which has its external, round-arched head cut from a single block of stone. It is impossible to say whether the window is pre-Conquest or later.'