The church is a well-documented source of parish history with St Marys being recorded since 1330, when its ‘chaplain’ was required to send an ox of the value of 10s. to the Abbot of Vale Royal every year. The list of the names of the Vicars and Curates show that it has been in continual use since then. The church is on the north side of the village of Goosnargh, and consists of a chancel with north vestry, nave, north aisle, south aisle, south porch and west tower. None of the church, with the possible exception of one of the windows of the north aisle, is older than the 15th century. In the churchyard to the south of the tower is a circular stone shafted sundial on two circular steps, the plate of which is dated July 1746 and bears the name of the Rev. C. Swainson. Further east is the socketed base of a churchyard cross. The oldest dated gravestone is 1668 though we have records of a parish church pre-existing those graves.
Goosnargh has been referenced in court documents connected to Lancashire from 1179 in connection to the fairs and toll’s for the village being part of the Amounderness hundred. The village follows a medieval style of settlement with a church, corn mill and stately home that the village grew around a formal boys school was built in 1673.
