[1] The Welsh placename element cil means a corner, or retreat, usually in a religious context, and the settlement name is suggestive of its Celtic Christian origins.

[4] In the 1980s and early 1990s, Kilgwrrwg was home to American war correspondent and novelist Martha Gellhorn, the widow of Ernest Hemingway.

The church is surrounded by a partly curved churchyard, suggesting a Celtic foundation, and has been described as "the most perfect example of an early Christian site".

[7] According to the local schoolteacher and philanthropist James Davies of Devauden,[9]"...the little church was in decay; rain and snow penetrated through the roof into the body of the building, and a neighbouring farmer folded his sheep within the walls of God's house.

On twelve Sundays in the year, and on those only, was public worship performed in that church; and on those occasions the accumulated filth of sheep and cattle was shovelled out the day before."