The church's origins may lie in a 12th-century timber predecessor, with the site first recorded in 1314. The present stone building went up around 1400 as a small single-nave church with an attached sacristy. From the early 1500s the Banér family held patronage rights over the parish, and their influence shaped much of what followed: around 1570 the church was widened southwards into a two-aisled hall church, and in the 17th century a further extension to the west, funded by the Banér family, made it three-aisled with pillars and vaulted ceilings.
The building's exterior has changed relatively little since then, retaining its rendered walls and steep, slate-covered roof. Windows were enlarged repeatedly during the 18th century, and an organ loft was added in 1794. Restorations in 1915, the 1970s and later works reshaped parts of the interior, including a new limestone floor and repositioning of the triumphal crucifix, while a 2017 extension added a modern entrance and gathering space along the north side.
As the Banér family's church, Danderyds kyrka contains several memorials to them, including two burial vaults beneath the choir and a large monument to Svante Gustafsson Banér and his wife Ebba Grip, attributed to Dutch sculptor and architect Aris Claeszon. The altarpiece, dated to 1707, was donated in memory of Johan Gabriel Banér and is said to closely resemble the altarpiece at Frösö kyrka; the pulpit, meanwhile, was a gift from Ebba Grip in memory of her husband, who died in 1628.
Older treasures include a Christ statue said to date from the 1100s, a triumphal crucifix from the 1200s, and a Madonna sculpture from the 1300s, alongside surviving funerary weapon-hatchments. Fragments of limewash paintings on the east gable and north wall, thought to date from around 1530, hint at the scale of the original medieval church. The current font, carved in the 1970s by local artist Maj Starck, replaced a medieval Gotland font of which only the base survives.
A detached bell tower east of the church carries a weathervane dated 1728; its bells include two recast in the 19th century and a larger bell added in 1953. The bells are mentioned in one of Carl Michael Bellman's 18th-century epistles, a small but charming link between the church and Swedish literary history.