The earliest records of religious activity at Anwoth date back to the 12th century, when the parish was granted to Holyrood Abbey.^[1] A cross slab, dating to around 1100, was found in the churchyard in the late 19th century.^[1]

Anwoth Old Church itself was built in 1626; the inscription in the arch above its doorway shows a date of 1627, but this was added much later and was likely influenced by the date when Samuel Rutherford started his ministry at the church.^[1] Rutherford came to Anwoth in 1627, shortly after receiving his licence to preach the gospel, at the invitation of John Gordon of Kenmure. Gordon died in 1634, and the following year an elaborate monument was constructed within the church, commemorating Gordon, his parents, and his two wives.^[2] Rutherford remained at the parish until 1636, when his disagreements with the church authorities led to his prohibition from practising as a minister and exile to Aberdeen.^[3]

Substantial improvements were made to the church in 1710 by William Maxwell of Cardoness and his wife, Nicola Stewart.^[4] These probably involved internal rearrangement of the church so that its pulpit backed onto the south wall, the addition of round-arched doors and rectangular windows to the gable ends, and the bellcote to the west gable.^[4] The church continued to be used until 1826, when it was dismantled and a new church constructed.^[1] The new church, Anwoth Parish Church, was built by Walter Newall for the Church of Scotland.^[5][6]

The cross slab and Gordon tomb were scheduled in 1963;^[7] the rest of the structure, and the churchyard around it, were designated a Category A listed building in 1971.^[8]

The churchyard was used as a location for a number of scenes in the 1973 horror film The Wicker Man,^[9] in which a Christian policeman, played by Edward Woodward, investigates the disappearance of a missing girl in a remote pagan community led by Christopher Lee.

The remains of the church are roofless, and form a long, narrow rectangle (21.3 metres (70 ft) by 5.6 metres (18 ft)), typical of early post-Reformation Scottish churches, and oriented west to east.^[10] Its walls are 1.1 metres (3.6 ft) thick, and there are round-arched doors in the east and west gable ends, each beneath a rectangular window, all of which have chamfered stonework surrounds.^[4] There is a substantial bellcote at the apex of the west gable.^[4]

Inside the church, in a blocked doorway in the south wall where the entrance to the church would originally have been, there is now a panel inscribed "Rebuilt Anno 1710 by WM, NS", and displaying the arms of Maxwell of Cardoness and his wife Stewart.^[4]

In the centre of the church is a large sarcophagus monument. Above a plinth is a tomb chest, which is decorated with an array of geometric patterns, scrollwork, finials, skeletons, crossbones, and the arms of the Gordons. The memorial bears initials for John Gordon, his parents William Gordon of Cullindoch and Marion Mure, his first wife Margaret McClellan, and his second wife Christian MacCadam, and there are panels with inscriptions dedicated to each of the three women.^[11]

To the north west of the church stands the 12th century cross slab. A rough slab of rock approximately 950 millimetres (37 in) high, 400 millimetres (16 in) wide and 80 millimetres (3.1 in) thick, it has a bulbous cross carved into its surface.^[1][11] Also in the churchyard is a monument to John Bell, a covenanter who was shot in 1685, and an early 19th-century mausoleum, which was rebuilt in 1878 by Sir William Maxwell of Cardoness.^[11] This is a large, Egypto-Grecian structure, with granite walls and a wooden door.^[4][8]