The church was constructed between roughly 1150 and 1175, and its stone-carved tympanum has led historians to identify an anonymous local sculptor known as the Skarhult Master, named after this very building. The romanesque doorway he created, with its running lion motif, was reconstructed during a restoration in 1940.
During the fifteenth century the timber roof vaults were added, and these were decorated first with ornamental painting around 1460, followed by figurative scenes about a century later, around 1550. These ceiling paintings remain one of the more striking features for visitors looking upward inside the nave.
In the mid-sixteenth century the church was enlarged under the direction of Mette Rosencrantz, mistress of Skarhults slott, who replaced the original semi-circular apse with a larger, square-ended chancel. Beneath this chancel a burial vault was created for her husband, Sten Rosensparre, who died at the Battle of Axtorna in 1565.
The present altar dates from the sixteenth century, while the pulpit was made in the early eighteenth century by Johan Ullberg. An earlier harmonium was later replaced by the current mechanical organ, built in 1968.
Several notable individuals connected to the parish, including Sten Rosensparre, have been buried at Skarhults kyrka, linking the building closely to the history of the neighbouring castle and its residents over the centuries.