Kniveton is a village in the Derbyshire Dales district of the county, 3 miles NE of Ashbourne. The church is in the village centre and has an aisleless nave with a W gallery and a S porch, a W tower with a spire and a chancel with a N vestry. The nave and S doorway are 12thc work. The W tower is late 13thc with battlements and tower added in the 15th-16thc. Both nave and chancel were rebuilt with new windows in 1663. Construction is of coursed gritstone rubble with ashlar dressings.

Kniveton was a berewick of Markeaton held by Earl Siward in 1066 and by Earl Hugh of Chester in 1086, when it was waste. A second holding, partly in the same vill and held by Henry de Ferrers was rated at a quarter of a carucate. The church was a chapelry of Ashbourne and was included in the gift of Ashbourne to Lincoln by William Rufus. It was still a dependent chapelry in 1240.

Curiously the description of the label stops, one described in Pevsner (1953) as a beakhead, is omitted in the 2016 edition. Both include the apex head, Pevsner himself calling it a bear while Hartwell does not commit herself as to its species. Neither notes the chamfer on the doorway, which suggests a date after the middle of the century.