St Levan is a parish in the SW of Cornwall consisting of a number of hamlets grouped together some 8 miles SW of Penzance. The church is some 400 yards N of the coast at Porthchapel beach. It is a granite rubble church with a tall granite ashlar tower. In plan it has a nave with a S aisle and a S porch, chancel, N transept and W tower. Nave, chancel and transept are 13thc in origin, and the 6-bay S aisle and the porch were added in the 15thc. The church was restored by J. D. Sedding in 1872, and by J. P. St Aubyn in 1891. The main Romanesque feature is the font, although the 2 bay entrance to the N transept has what may be a reused 12thc capital on the E jamb of the E bay, and a stoup in the S porch may be 12thc. too.

St Levan is not recorded by that name in the Domesday survey, but is assumed to be included in St Buryan, held by the Canons of St Buryan in 1086 and throughout the Middle Ages. Until 1864 the church was a chapelry of the Royal Peculiar of the Deanery of St Buryan, and it is now part of the Benefice of St Buryan and St Sennen.

The font bowl was dated by Sedding to 1100-30, and compared by him (followed by Beacham and Pevsner) to Phillack; a curious comparison because that font has a square bowl carried on corner shafts and is described by both Sedding and Beacham in terms that are heavily critical of its over-restored condition. The decoration on the sides of the bowl he compared to the fonts at Cury and Cubert.