Local tradition has it that St Bridget, the abbess of Kildare, Ireland, visited the area on a pilgrimage in 500 AD through south Wales to Glastonbury. She is said to have founded a small Christian community here and built the first church.

The 12th-century Church of St Bridget was a Parish church in its own right for centuries. Until the Reformation the Church was, along with Ewenny Priory and other local churches, a possession of Gloucester Abbey, both having been given to the abbey in 1141.