It is the only remaining visible remnant of the medieval village of Runston, although parts of the former domestic dwellings can be identified under turf-covered mounds on the site.

By 1798, when William Coxe arrived at the chapel, "the roof was fallen down, a large and broken font was lying on the floor, among the weeds and elder trees".

[3] Fred Hando, the Monmouthshire writer and illustrator, who visited about 150 years later, suggested that the decline was in part deliberate; "the men of Runston were a disreputable gang, smugglers, sheep-stealers and poachers.

[5] John Newman, the architectural historian, in his Gwent/Monmouthshire Pevsner, notes that the chapel's unchanged dimensions give "an excellent idea of the neat symmetry" of the Romanesque style.

[1] Cadw's listing record for the scheduled monument notes that it is "of national importance for its potential to enhance our knowledge of the organisation and practice of medieval Christianity".