The church is a simple two-cell building of local sandstone. The RCHME calls it 12thc., Taylor and Taylor 'Saxo-Norman, but probably post-Conquest', and Pevsner 'Early Norman'. This last view seems most appropriate. Four round-headed and deeply splayed windows are part of this early church: one is in the N wall of the chancel, two in the N wall of the nave and one (now blocked) in the S wall of the nave. There are also three original doorways and a chancel arch. The most outstanding feature, however, is the font described by Pevsner as, 'one of the masterworks of Romanesque sculpture in England. It would arrest attention in any country.'

In 1086 Castle Frome belonged to Roger de Lacy, who inherited numerous estates in Herefordshire and Shropshire from his father Walter I, who died in 1085. The caput of the family was Weobley (q.v.). Lacy demesne land included 58 manors valued in 1086 at £234.00 at least, an enormous sum for the time (Wightman, 147). Castle Frome is named Brismerfrum in DS (10, 30) after its pre-Conquest owner Brihtmer and in DBH (44) it is called Brichtmer(es)froma and Castelli in the margin. The castle, of which only a small mound survives 350 yards E of the church, is described by the RCHM (2:49) as motte and bailey. VCH (1:225) suggests that this mound is the site of Walter de Lacy's keep. It is quite probable that the church was built by Walter, who was a generous benefactor of church buildings. Who paid for the magnificent font is more difficult to say. After Roger's banishment in 1096, the Lacy estates passed to Roger's brother Hugh I, who died c.1115 and whose only child Sybil married Payn fitzJohn, who thus inherited the Lacy fortune, though not the whole of it (Wightman, 175) Payn fitzJohn died in 1137 but Sybil survived him and the font could be due to her generosity, though this is only a conjecture.

Benefice of Bishop's Frome with Castle Frome and Fromes Hill.

Early Romanesque doorways with their sunk tympana are clearly a Norman importation. The blocked doorway in the N wall of the W tower of Jumieges Abbey provides a good parallel for the three Castle Frome doorways even if the pseudo-lintel at Jumieges is gabled. The font has many iconographic and stylistic similarities with other sculpture by this master within the county, most particularly at Eardisley, Shobdon, Kilpeck and Leominster. Related fonts are found at Shobdon and Eardisley (both Herefordshire), Chaddesley Corbett (Worcestershire) and Stottesdon (Shropshire). The supporting figures of the base are usually considered as influenced by Italian sculpture (Zarnecki (1950), 313-316; Pevsner (1963), 99-100) but this is not entirely convincing. Fonts supported by human figures, animals or grotesque creatures abound in Europe and one of the earliest (1107/18), the bronze font by Rainer of Huy at Liege (Lasko (1972), 162, pl.169) standing on ten (originally twelve) oxen, is Mosan and has no connection with Italy. There are two stone fonts in Herefordshire, in Hereford Cathedral and at Sutton which have protomes of lions at the base, for which parallels can be found in Denmark and Sweden rather than in Italy, e.g. the font at Loderup, illustrated in Nordstrom (1984), fig.21. Thurlby (1999) raises the possibility that the form was imported from Germany, pointing to Robert de Losinga's Bishop's Chapel at Hereford as evidence that such links existed by the late 11thc. German parallels offered are the fonts at Freckenhorst, Westphalia, and Freudenstadt, Würtemberg. Zarnecki and Thurlby agree in dating the font close to work at Shobdon and Kilpeck, ie. c.1140, and both too suggest patronage by Payn fitz John's wife Sybil de Lacy after Payn's death in 1137. Pevsner's dating of c.1170 is totally untenable, but his reputation has ensured that this is the date given to visitors to the church in the literature available there.