The red brick church, built by the Belgian Picpus Fathers in 1903 stands within the boundaries of one of England's most ancient centres of Christianity.  The very name "Eccleshall" could well refer to a church building here before the time of St. Chad in the early 7th Century.  "eccles" being either the name of the owner of "halh" (piece of land), or referring to church property.  Either way, a church here was destroyed by either the Mercians or the Danes, before the present Holy Trinity parish church (now Anglican) was built in 1190, and used by successive Bishops of Lichfield, who lived in the nearby Eccleshall Castle.  The last Catholic bishop at the time of the Reformation being Bishop Sampson who is buried in the churchyard.

The Catholic parish was re-established by Archbishop Ullathorne in 1870, and placed under the care of Father Smith, the Parish Priest of nearby Swynnerton.  The first parish church was a former cottage in Stafford Street which is now a chip shop, but can still be identified by the presence of two crosses on top of the gable windows.

In 1893 the Picpus Fathers came to Eccleshall.  They were Belgian priests, of the Institute of the Sacred Heart, led by their superior, Father William de Boek.  They opened a school in the same year in Claremont House and a junior novitiate nearby in Stanley House, just a few streets away.  Attached to Stanley House, they built the present-day church in 1903.  It is said that they walked from Eccleshall to Belgium to collect funds for their building work.

The Picpus Fathers departed from Eccleshall in 1911, leaving the parish to be served from Ashley for the next 60 years.  In 1922 an important event occurred, when Dom Constantine Bosschaerts O.S.B. opened an English branch of his "Vita et Pax" Benedictine Sisters in Eccleshall.  These Olivetan Sisters, with Houses in Normandy and Belgium, opened a school in Stanley House.  Father Constantine decorated the walls of the Sanctuary with his own artwork, and painted scenes from the lives of the local Saxon martyrs on the walls of the Baptistry, which was where the Confessional is now situated.  In 1926 the Sisters left Eccleshall, but remained in England eventually establishing a House at Turvey Abbey.

The parish continued to be served from Ashley and it was not until 1960 that the Franciscan Missionaries of Saint Joseph came to live in Stanley House, where they remained until 1997.  In late 2004 the Brotherhood of the Holy Cross Community was given permission by Archbishop Nichols to establish a House, where they continue to this day.  One of their number, Father Stephen Cochrane being the present Parish Priest of Sacred Heart Church.

The church must surely be unusual in that during its relatively short existence, it has been home to no fewer than four religious Communities.  The Picpus Fathers who built it, the Olivetan Benedictines, the Franciscan Missionaries of Saint Joseph and now the Brotherhood of the Holy Cross.