In about 1120-30 AD, during the reign of Henry I, Gilbert the Norman, Sheriff of Surrey, built a large church at Kingston.  This was shaped in the form of a cross, with its tower at the centre.  The nave was as long as the present one, but probably without aisles.  East of the tower was a chancel and to the north and south were two transepts of a depth equal to the present aisles.

Little or nothing now remains of Gilbert the Norman's church.  Some of the stones in the pillars under the tower may be Norman, and there are some Norman stones (shaped with an axe) where the end nave pillar on the south joins the west wall; these are thought to have formed part of the wall of the old Norman nave.  When the Victorians were building the present west porch they uncovered a large Norman doorway cased up in an eighteenth century classical entrance; they thoughtfully photographed it and then, in typically cavalier Victorian fashion, destroyed it!

The earliest work now visible in the church is the casing of the four tower pillars round the altar, and the tower staircase.  This dates from the 13th century and conceals older, Norman, work. In about 1370, the Norman nave was pulled down and a new nave was constructed with aisles.  The work was probably spread over a number of years, and the nave pillars, which date from this time, are not all of the same size; those on the north are more slender than those on the south, while the easternmost pillar on the south side is of greater dimensions than its fellows and has no base.  It is probable that at this period the opportunity was taken to widen the nave (and probably the chancel also) by some two feet by building the north pillars on to the outside edge of the tower pillar, while those on the south are built on to the centre.  Whatever was the reason for doing this, the result, which can clearly be seen today, is that the centre of the nave and chancel does not coincide with the centre of the tower.

During the next century, the 15th, the east end of the church began to take its present shape.  During the middle of this century, the chapel on the south, which is now the baptistery, was built and the arcade of three pillars erected.  A few years later, the chapel on the north side (now the Memorial Chapel of the East Surrey Regiment) was built for the fraternity of the Holy Trinity.

Many changes were made to the interior of the church in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, but no further structural alterations were made until the second half of the nineteenth century when the two transepts were enlarged and the height of the east and west pillars under the tower was raised.  The exterior of the church was also extensively rebuilt to a design by John Loughborough Pearson, who had designed Truro Cathedral.  Much of the stained glass in the windows of the church dates from this period; it is said that many of the figures, particularly in the fine West Window, are based on local worthies of the time.