Historic England gives a construction date for the church of , noting that it was built for the prior of Kirkham Abbey. The architectural historian David Neave writes that the benefice was granted to the abbey by
Walter Espec in 1121 and the church rebuilt shortly thereafter. Further work was undertaken in the 14th and 15th centuries, including the construction of the upper stage of the tower. They cover almost the entirety of the interior of the church and present a series of scenes from the bible. The total cost of the decoration was some £3,000. The mid-19th century was a period of great turbulence for the established church: the publication of
Charles Darwin's
On the Origin of Species, in 1859, had challenged orthodox thinking on the creation of the world. The historian
Jill Allibone suggests that the murals were Sykes's, and his vicar's, rebuttal of Darwinian heresy. Writing of the murals in his 1972 guide to York and the East Riding, when their condition was already "pitiful", Pevsner noted, "it is essential that they be preserved". By the time of Pevsner's death just over a decade later, the murals were "hideously disfigured by damp and dirt". A number of Pevsner's friends and colleagues had planned to raise a sum of money to fund a restoration project in his memory and the architectural historian
John Newman chaired the fundraising committee, the Pevsner Memorial Trust. In Bridget Cherry and Simon Bradley's volume,
The Buildings of England: A Celebration, he records how the committee identified the murals at St Michael and All Angels as a suitable project and worked to raise the £100,000 required. David Neave's 2005 revision to the guide records their restoration and preservation in 1986–1991. The church remains an active parish church and holds regular services. ==Architecture and description==