By the time of the Domesday Survey (1086) the settlement of Tatenale was recorded.  Some historians believe the name is of Celtic origin being derived from the old Enlgish personal name 'Tata' and 'halh' meaning 'a meadow'.  For the next six hundred years, the name of the settlement changed, having been variously called Tatenhala (1280), Tattenhall (1289), Tatnall (1473), Tottenhall (1553) and Tettenhall (1649).  Elsewhere in the parish, the name of the township of Golborne Bellow was derived from the Belewe family with the surname of Thomas de Bellow or de Bella Aqua.  The second township's name, Newton, is derived from old English 'niwe' and 'tun'.  All these place names pre-date the Norman Conquest.

During the 15th and 16th Centuries Tattenhall was a quiet self-sustained village, growing its own food and weaving its own cloth.  Social life was centred on the church, which was the source of official information.  The only holidays celebrated were church festivals.

The building of the Chester Canal (now the Shropshire Union Canal) during the 1770s affected the lives of people in Tattenhall.  The poverty of many prior to this development was alleviated firstly, by providing work in canal construction and then, secondly, by providing an improved form of transport for cheese and other dairy products from South Cheshire to all parts of the country.  With the canal development, Tattenhall was no longer an isolated settlement and as a result small industries started to locate in the area.  These developments were to result in the doubling of the population by the middle of the 19th century.

During this time, Tattenhall sustained its prosperity, developing its economy and infrastructure, thus achieving a degree of affluence and respectability.  Agricultural holdings had become larger and the first commuters journeyed to Chester and beyond via the London & North Western Railway (LNWR) which had reached the parish by the middle of the century.  The railway, like the canal before it, opened up new and more distant markets for the farming community and attracted light industries to the village and other parts of the parish.  The railway line between Chester and Crewe was opened in 1840, and when the line to Whitchurch was opened in 1872, Tattenhall became a station of local importance with transport from the village sent to meet each train.

Tattenhall became an attractive place in which to live and work, evidenced today by the number of substantial Victorian buildings both in the village and on the surrounding farmsteads.