The medieval church does not survive, but some ashlar may have been reused in the construction of a burial vault on the site. In 1627, the church was described as in a ruinous state, the roof already decayed. Certain repairs were made in 1669, but in 1688 a report noted further faults with the roof. In 1750, it was finally decided to unite the parish of Kirknewton with that of East Calder, following which a new church was built on an entirely different site. In 1780, much of the church appears to have been demolished, and in 1844 it was reported that there were ‘scanty remains’ on the site of the old church. Until the 1950s/60s, a hogback type grave cover was to be seen in the churchyard, S of the ruins. It has since disappeared, but a photograph and various descriptions survive.

There is no reference to the church before 1275, when it appears in the papal tax accounts. The first known rector is Patrick Lesours, who is named in 1450. In 1472, Kirknewton was appropriated to a prebend in the collegiate church of St Giles, Edinburgh.

J. T. Lang (1976) argued that the hogback type grave cover at Kirknewton was probably late 11th- or early 12th-c. The grave cover is not like earlier Viking hogback grave covers, and the association elsewhere of similar grave covers with churches of a Romanesque type (see, for example, Skaill in Orkney) does make his dating attribution quite likely. Whether this type is a direct development of the purer hogback type, or whether it is the result of Romanesque grave covers (as for example, at Fordwich in Kent) remains an open question. In September, 2012, in verbal discussion with Mr. J. L. Hardie (a local historian in Kirknewton), it transpired that the grave cover had been taken away when the West Lothian Council was first formed and it was decided to reorganize the gravestones in order to make mowing easier. It had been intended that the grave cover would be returned to the cemetery, but it never was. The matter was taken up with the Council, who suggested the stone had been stolen, but there is a suspicion that the grave cover was destroyed. Whatever the truth of it, there is at present no information concerning what happened to the grave cover and whether it still survives in another location.