A local yeoman farmer, John Powell, in the mid ninteenth century, feeling that it was unfair to expect the inhabitants of Newton to travel all the way to the parish church at Clodock to attend worship, walked all the way to St David's to petition the Bishop - the whole area was then in the Diocese of St David's - for permission to build a chapel of ease. (A chapel of ease is a church building other than the parish church, built within the bounds of a parish for the attendance of those who cannot reach the parish church conveniently.) The enormous parish of Clodock already had three such chapels at Longtown, Llanveynoe & Craswall. Permission was given, and the church, dedicated to St John the Baptist, was duly built in 1842.
It is a very simple church, built somewhat in the Chapel tradition - a tradition which is very strong in the neighbourhood - but, with its excellent chuch room next door, it must be one of the best equipped village churches in the Diocese - which since 1852 has been the Diocese of Hereford
