From the Mobberley charters held at Chester Record Office, it is clear that the endowments to Mobberley Priory were not sufficient to support a large religious community. This might have been one of the reasons, which led Patrick de Mobberley to choose the Regular Canons of St. Augustine for his priory since they had a reputation for being more moderate in their lifestyle than the Benedictines, the Cluniacs or the Cistercians, and were "far less given to gluttony and greed". Their communities tended to be smaller than those of other orders with some houses, such as Latton in Essex, being founded for just three members. This might also have been a determining factor for Patrick, who may have founded a priory for half a dozen canons, or even less with the hope that one day it would become a flourishing community. There was another advantage for Patrick in choosing the Order of the Regular Canons of St. Augustine as canons were ordained clerics under the authority of the bishop. Since they were ordained, they were able to carry out parochial duties in the same way as secular canons and so the spiritual needs of the de Mobberleys' and their tenants would be attended to on a daily basis. Monks, on the other hand, were not necessarily ordained and as such were not able to say mass or administer the sacraments.

Having prepared the way for the foundation of his priory, Patrick appointed a canon named Walter to be its first Prior. It is not known where the canons came from, nor how many there were. The charters state that there was a church belonging to the manor, but not when it was built. In 1888, during repair work on the chancel of the present church, the workmen found some stones that were said to have come from the Saxon church. Although it is not beyond the realms of the possibility that a church had been built there by Saxon converts to Christianity sometime in the late seventh or early eighth century, it is thought that the stones located in 1888 may well have belonged to an Anglo-Norman church.

Antiquarian, Herbert Hulme, expressed the view that the first Mobberley church was founded by Wilfrid, a seventh century Bishop of York, and goes on to say "the date of its erection may be safely placed about the year 690. It would be exciting if this could be verified, but Hulme’s only explanation for arriving at his conclusion is that Wilfrid was exiled from Northumbria about that period and came to Mercia. This is born out by Stenton (1971) who states that King Aldfrith expelled Wilfrid from Northumbria in 691 and ‘for the next eleven years Wilfrid lived under the protection of Aethelred, King of Mercia, administering the whole Mercian diocese for a time ".

The link with Wilfrid might not be without foundation and when the fact that Patrick had dedicated his priory to St. Mary and St. Wilfrid is taken into account, the idea begins to gain weight. The dedication to St. Mary was typical of Norman piety, but it is more than likely that the church already on the site had been called St. Wilfrid's before the foundation of the priory. It is possible, therefore, that it was called after St. Wilfred because he, or one of his followers, had founded it and that the Mercians in the area had copied the custom of their Celtic neighbours, of naming churches after the people who had founded them.

The site occupied by the church might have been considered a sacred place for centuries before the Norman Conquest for, although on maps it has the appearance of being rectilinear, an on the spot examination reveals that the original boundaries followed the curvilinear outline of a small mound. In addition it is situated very close to a spring.

The early Christian missionaries to Mobberley may have founded a church on this site, following the advice given by Pope Gregory to Mellitus in 602, to use pagan sites when building new churches so that people could continue to use the places that were familiar to them in their worship. The circular mound with its nearby spring may have been just such a site and it is tempting to think of Wilfred preaching to the people of Mobberley from that very spot.

It may never be known whether the church given to the priors had been in existence from the seventh or eighth century or whether it was later, but it is known that work began on the present church in 1245. Documentary evidence shows that by this date the priory had already lost its independence, when Gilbert de Barton, a grandson of Augustine de Brethmete, annexed the lands and the church of Mobberley to Rocester Abbey in Staffordshire sometime between 1228 and 1230 having previously given the mill to the priory. The advowson of the church also went to Rocester. Gilbert may have taken these actions because the priory was not economically viable. The sale of the land in Tatton to Hugh de Venables around the same time tends to suggest that this was the case. Gilbert, however, may have had another reason for putting Mobberley Priory under control of an abbey outside the county.

If lack of finances were the only reason for Mobberley’s demise as an independent foundation, it is difficult to understand why it was not annexed to Norton Priory, a flourishing Augustinian foundation within the boundaries of Cheshire. One explanation put forward by Hulme is contained in an account from Daniel King’s ‘Vale Royal’ (1656). King wrote that in 1229 Randle, Earl of Chester, surnamed Blundeville, refused to pay tithes to the Pope and forbad anyone in his ‘Dominion’ to do so, whether they were cleric or lay person. Once annexed to Rocester Abbey, the priory’s financial affairs would have been dealt with by the abbey and so the tithes demanded of Mobberley Priory by the Pope would have been paid.

There is no record of how long Mobberley Priory remained in existence after it had been annexed to Rocester. In 1259/60 Ralph de Mobberley’s name appears on a Plea Roll of 44 Henry Ill challenging a presentation to the church at Mobberley by the Abbot of Rocester. In the Plea, reference is made to the ‘Convent and Priory of Mobberley’ therefore, in name at least, it was still in existence at that date. However, as Ralph de Mobberley felt he had the right to challenge an appointment made by the Abbot, it seems likely that the priory was no longer of any significant size. It is possible that by this date Mobberley had been reduced to just one prior, as happened at a later date at Calwich, an Augustinian house on the Staffordshire/Derbyshire border that had started out as a community of four canons.

The last mention of Mobberley church in connection with Rocester Abbey is in a confirmation of Rocester’s possessions by Pope Boniface VIII in 1300. Hulme states that in 1306 Richard de Mobberley, who had been presented to the living by his father, had been slain by a relative, so it would seem that the advowson of the church had returned to the de Mobberleys by that date.