Orleton is a village in the N of the county, 5 miles N of Leominster and just over a mile S of the Shropshire border. The church stands in the village centre, and has a long and broad nave, a 13thc chancel with a S vestry, and a W tower with a broach spire. The nave is of 12thc date, the chancel was rebuilt in the 13thc, but the W tower is somewhat problematic. Its W doorway is round-headed but deeply chamfered. If it is 12thc it must be reset, because the 1st-storey W window is a pointed lancet. The 2nd –storey N and S windows, however, are round-headed. The font and a shaft section are the only carved survivals of the original Romanesque building and both are works of the Herefordshire School. The mutilated stone was in the crypt of Hereford Cathedral in 1989, but had been returned to the church by 2012.

The Domesday Survey lists Orleton as the property of Ralph de Mortimer of Wigmore Castle, the owner of Shobdon. The identity of his tenant at Orleton at the time when the church was built is unknown. Herefordshire Domesday, dating to c.1160, gives the name of Radulfus as the owner of Arletone.

The fragment of the shaft is clearly remnant of a richly carved doorway. It is likely that, as the church was dedicated to St George, the doorway included a tympanum with this saint, as at Brinsop. As remarked above, three of the apostles on the font hold handfuls of drapery, a motif found also on the voussoirs at Brinsop. This is clearly Italian-inspired, as shown by somewhat earlier (c.1120) reliefs at Modena Cathedral by Wiligelmo.

The font is the only one of cylindrical shape in the Hereford School. Curiously it is not mentioned in Thurlby (1999).