Ormesby St Margaret is a large village, lying 7 mi NW of Great Yarmouth and 20 mi NE of Norwich. The village is between the Broads and the coast, and not far inland from Caister-on-Sea. The parish church is situated at the seaward end of the village above the Yarmouth road. The church of St Margaret has a nave and chancel of 14thc origin, much-restored in the 19thc, with west tower of c.1500 and later north aisle and vestry. It is made of flint and chert rubble with limestone dressings. The only Romanesque feature is a reset Norman doorway in the 15thc south porch.

Ormesby, now separated into Ormesby St Margaret and the nearby Ormesby St Michael, appears in DB as a large and divided settlement in East Flegg, held in several parts by the king, Roger Bigod, and the bishop of Thetford. The majority of the church was built in the 14thc and restored in the 19th and 20thc. However, the Romanesque south porch door indicates that there was a church here before this.

There is no beakhead ornament on the arch of the doorway, as stated in Pevsner (1997), 628. The square section-billet on the S doorway at St Margaret's is a feature of the Yare Valley workshop.