The village of Checkley grew up near to the road between Cheadle and Uttoxeter (now the A522) and it is centred around St Mary’s Church. Most of the village is just to the south of that main road and thus through traffic does not pass through the village itself.

Until 1822 all the traffic between Tean and Uttoxeter would have passed through the village because it was only in that year that a new piece of turnpike road from the top of Church Lane to Deadman’s Green was built. This road forms what is now the A522 main road. Prior to that time the route was through the village and then along Old Lane. Initially the village was just a small collection of cottages near to the church. By 1880 there were the cottages on Church Lane and the rectory was next to the church (since converted to flats). By this time the Red Lion public house was built opposite the church.

Close to the River Tean was Rectory Farm. This had originally been the rectory before the replacement was built next to the church. The Hutchinson Memorial School on Uttoxeter Road had recently opened in January 1880 with 49 pupils. The school was named after the Rev. William Hutchinson who was the rector of Checkley from 1839 to 1878. The public house on the main Uttoxeter Road was initially called The Cock Inn and later The New Inn, but in the 1970s it changed its name yet again to The New Broom.

In the 1880s it was decided that it was necessary to extend the churchyard and the lane to the east of the church was closed and another road, New Road, was constructed about 50 metres further east.

Over the period from the 1920s until the 1960s there were a few other properties constructed in the village. Then in the 1960s there was expansion of the village with the construction of around 30 houses in Cranberry Avenue. Barker & Shenton ran a garage on Uttoxeter Road to the west of the village and later the site was used as a depot when the new A50 was being constructed before it subsequently became the Badgers Hollow development in the 1990s.

During the 1970s there was also the building of further houses on land to the east of the village to form St Mary's Close and additionally along Church Lane to the east of New Road.. Also during the 1990s land at the neighbouring hamlet of Deadman’s Green, (half a mile east of the centre of the village) was developed for further housing and formed Green Park. That land had previously been a garage and transport café but with the opening of the new A50 to the south of the village it no longer had passing trade and therefore closed.

Since around the millennium there has been little further development within the village.

In 2011 the estimated population of the village was about 360. The facilities in the village include a first school, a village hall, two pubs and of course the church. There is a bus services to Hanley, Cheadle and Uttoxeter.