St Margaret's church is situated in the Norfolk village of Breckles, which lies about 20 mi W of Norwich. The village is bypassed by the main Thetford to Watton road, standing on higher ground on a quiet parallel lane. The church sits a few hundred metres south of Breckles Hall, a historic Elizabethan house.

The parish church is built of flint with ashlar dressings and tiled roofs. It comprises a circular west tower of Saxon or early Norman origin, a later medieval nave, and a chancel largely of the 14thc, all restored in 1856. The tower retains a low semicircular tower arch with decorated imposts carved with cable, interlace, and serpent motifs above a substantial roll moulding, which Pevsner says is pre-Norman. Externally, the tower rises to an octagonal Perpendicular belfry stage with flushwork decoration and trefoiled bell-openings, added in the late 15th or early 16thc. The nave is principally 15thc, lit by large panel-traceried windows and entered through a south porch. The chancel preserves 14thc work, including a three-light east window of stem-and-leaf tracery type and trefoiled side windows, together with a piscina.

The principal Romanesque feature is the font, probably dating from c.1120. The bowl is richly carved on all faces, and the corner shafts also carry carved ornament recalling pre-Conquest decorative traditions. There is also an abandoned font outside.

Breckles is entered in Domesday Book (1086) as a relatively large settlement of 29 households in Wayland Hundred. The vill was divided among several estates, the largest in royal hands, with other holdings belonging to Roger Bigot and Ralph de Tosny. Before the Conquest the land had been held largely by groups of free men under Earl Harold and King Edward. The Domesday entries record ploughland and meadow as the principal resources.

The interior of the church was restored in 1867 by EB Lamb.

Other Romanesque square fonts in Norfolk with figures in the arches include St Martin, Fincham and St Mary, Burnham Deepdale.

All four sides of the font at Breckles are different, making a coherent programme difficult to decipher. Certainly there is a mix of pre-conquest styles - the figures under the arches on the E face (perhaps representing the four Evangelists or the four Doctors of the Church) relate to the Hedda Stone at Peterborough as well as late Saxon carvings found at St Kyneburgha's Castor and St Margaret's Fletton. The beasts with spiralling foliage on the W face also relate to Scandinavian designs, which are common in the area and can also be seen, for instance, at St Kyneburgha's Castor. The chevron ornament on the S face and the volutes on the SW corner are decidedly Romanesque however, and the font seems to demonstrate a carver using and experimenting with styles and motifs that span both periods.