Nun Monkton is a settlement 8 miles N of York. The church is the main survival from the priory founded before 1154, and is approached from the SW on a private road up an avenue leading directly towards the W facade. The five bays of W part of the present church are the only visible remains from the priory. The W facade is 12th-century in the lower stage, with doorway and statuary; the W doorway opens into the tower which is enclosed in the aisleless nave. The E wall is a 19th-century feature; it did not exist in this position at the time of the visit by Sir William Glynne (Butler 2007, 308-10). The E end of the present church was added in 1873, incorporating the remains of the easternmost doorway in the S wall. (See Leach and Pevsner 2009, 610-11).
There are three doorways in the S wall of the nave of which the E is the most elaborate but mostly restored; access to the exterior S wall was restricted in 2014. Plan of church in Poole 1844 shows a straight E wall limiting the early work to five bays; sources of earlier illustrations are given in Bilson 1915, 107; three illustrations of the pre-restoration building are given in Butler 2007, 308-10).
Romanesque sculpture is foound on the E doorway, S wall, and on the W facade.