The large fortified square tower is unusually placed north of the nave in which is a filled in, low, eastern arch, likely associated with a small priory which was attached through the Middle Ages.

The church is the reputed burial place of Iestyn ap Gwrgant, the last ruler of the Welsh kingdom of Morgannwg, who is said to have become a religious at Llangennith after being deposed by the Norman Robert Fitzhamon in 1090.

The church contains the mutilated effigy of a 13th-century knight known locally as 'the Dolly Mare' and believed to represent a member of the de la Mere family who held lands nearby and a significant Norman font.

On the village green opposite the church gates is the reinforced mouth of a natural spring, St Cenydd's Well, on the upper capstone of which are carved faint traces of a cross.

During World War I, when the British government introduced daylight saving, the villagers held a public meeting - and graciously voted to fall in line for a trial period of one month.