The previous church was a plain red-brick Georgian chapel of 1766, which may have been built on the site of the medieval church, itself replaced by a massive Neo-Romanesque building to its N built 1869-71 by Lancaster firm Paley and Austin. The two buildings were photographed together but the older building was soon demolished, and its site and small plan is still visible in the graveyard, marked by a monumental cross. The new building is a powerful and essay in Romanesque and Early Gothic, both sympathetic to period motifs and highly inventive. At the W end of the nave is the Romanesque font, which appears to be from the original building.

Kirkby appears in the Domesday Book, where its taxable value was identified as 12 carucates. It does not appear in the 1291 Taxatio, and the site does not appear to have been a parish in the Middle Ages, instead it likely operated as a chapelry of Walton on the Hill. By tradition, the church was founded 870, but there is no evidence for this except that its name of Kirkby (Cherchebi) indicates that there was a church established well before the Conquest. The dedication to St Chad may be an indication of a Mercian origin, but also could be a modern appellation inspired by tradition, however Larkin found a reference to "Chad croft on the north side of the churchyard" from 1733. It should be acknowledged there is practically no record of the church before the Reformation.

The imagery of the font can be divided into two sections. The iconography of one half is straightforward. It shows the Fall of Man with Adam and Eve, with the cherub with the sword who will expell them from Eden and St Michael killing the serpent L of them.

The other half, of seven priestly figures, is more problematic. Roberts in 1853, working off the assumption that the font was Saxon, said they were the seven orders of the Saxon clergy according to the canons of Aelfric (late 10thc). He claims that Priest 4, with the gesture of benediction, is a "presbyter or bishop", and that Priest 5, with the long staff, is a deacon. He then says the Lector and Exorcist are represented by the remaining priests with open books, and the remaining two the Acolyte and Ostiary attending their duties "with folding hands". The main basis of his argument seems to be the numerical relationship to the text, rather than visual, and not much credence should be placed in what is essentially a brief note accompanying some excellent drawings of the font.

Larkin, trying to argue an iconography more suitable for the 12thc date, argued for a meaning to do with the clergy for infant baptism with special reference to the career of St Chad, the titular saint of the church and its original cathedral at Lichfield. He places Priest 7, with the infant as central to the programme, dividing the font between a sequence of Adam, Eve, the serpent and the two angels and the symmetrical sequence of two outer priests, then two figures with staffs, and centrally two mitred saints with serpents below them. However the identification of Priest 7 as holding an infant is not well argued by Larkin. His connections to St Chad - who as he admits cannot be proven as the medieval dedication of the old church - are also somewhat spurious.

Larkin's dating of the font from both the shape of the chasubles and facial hair is very convincing, placing it as possibly late 11thc or more probably early 12th. The use of volute capitals and rather clumsy-stepped bases also point to an earlier Norman date, falling out of fashion by the mid 12thc. There are certainly earlier influences though: the rather weightless placing of the feet and draperies feel rather Anglo-Saxon, and the use of serpents rather Norse-inflected, as in the famous scheme at Kilpeck of the 1130s. The Saxons also used cable moulding, and while its use as a trim to the bottom of the bowl is Romanesque, its gigantic use as the base is much less so.