The church has a nave, a chancel and a west tower. It is of ashlar, cobbles and brick and ‘unashamedly exhibits the results of centuries of maintenance by churchwardens and parishioners’ (Pevsner & Neave 1995, 377). If it had been ‘restored’, little of interest would remain from the twelfth century. As it is, the work is various and incomplete: there are columns and capitals from the S doorway, the chancel arch and the S arcade; there is a font with four carved heads on the base; and there are some reset fragments in the nave and chancel S walls.

Sometimes the village is called ‘North Burton’ (Morris 1919,124-5). The ‘Fleming’ element of the place-name derives from the fact that the overlords, the Gant family, came from the neighbourhood of Ghent in Flanders.

In 1086, all 16 carucates belonged to the king. The manor subsequently became part of the Gant fee and was included in Gilbert de Gant’s confirmation, in the early twelfth century, of the gifts made by his father and his father’s men to Bridlington priory. In 1284-5 the priory was said to hold 12 out of the 18 carucates at Burton Fleming (VCH II, 119).

The church was a dependent chapelry to Hunmanby in 1115 when, along with its mother church, it was given by Walter de Gant to Bardney abbey (VCH II, 123).