The church began as a simple apsidal building of grey fieldstone with hewn sandstone corners, raised in the later twelfth century. Over the following two centuries it was substantially remodelled: brick vaulting replaced the original timber ceiling in the choir and nave during the 1300s, porches were added to the north and later the south, and the sturdy west tower was built in the fifteenth century, giving the church much of the silhouette visible today.
Inside, the walls carry medieval wall paintings from two main phases. The oldest, in the apse, date from the fourteenth century and depict the Last Judgement with Christ enthroned as judge of the world. Around 1500 the so-called Lilla Harrie group added further scenes across the choir and nave, including the Creation, the Fall and Expulsion from Paradise, an apostle frieze, and images of the Annunciation, the Nativity, the Three Kings and the Seven Deadly Sins. A figure of Saint Christopher, traditionally regarded as the church's patron, appears on the inside of the chancel arch.
The sandstone font and altar are counted among the most significant furnishings, both believed to date from the church's earliest medieval period; the altar table is known to contain a relic cavity. The carved pulpit, made around 1620–1630 by the Lund craftsman Jakob Kremberg, bears the crowned monogram of the Danish king Christian IV beneath the Danish and Norwegian coats of arms — a striking survival from the period before Skåne became Swedish, when such Danish symbols were generally removed; how it escaped that fate remains uncertain, though one theory suggests the canopy was hidden away. A sexton's pew from the sixteenth century has churchwardens' marks and initials carved into it by generations of parish clerks.//
Unusually for a Swedish parish church, no trace of the nobility survives here: instead it was the village miller and innkeeper who funded much of the decoration and secured burial chambers within the church, a rare arrangement. A well-known local legend concerns a young smith's son said to have signed away his soul to the devil in a blood-written note hidden in the porch wall, in exchange for wealth — a tale tied to eighteenth-century beliefs about the devil haunting the churchyard.
By the 1890s Kävlinge had grown into a railway town needing a larger church, and the new Korsbackakyrkan was built about 250 metres away in 1897. Gamla kyrkan was deconsecrated and slated for demolition, a decision never carried out because it proved too costly. For over fifty years the building served variously as a mortuary chapel, fire station and grain store, while occasional services continued, with collections set aside for eventual restoration. That restoration, led by cathedral architect Eiler Græbe, allowed the church to be reconsecrated by Bishop Anders Nygren in 1957. The churchyard is now protected as a heritage site and is no longer used for burials.