The medieval church was on a site in Church Street, and was said to have had some Roman stone in it (McLane 1964, 3). In an illustration of the medieval church from the SE before its demolition in 1814, the chancel has a steep roof of tile but a flatter nave roof; there is a wooden bell turret at the W end within the rectangle of the nave; corbels run along the walls of the nave and chancel; one round-headed slit window remains in the S wall of the nave but other windows are square-headed; and there was a large wooden porch (Hudleston 1962).

Sir Stephen Glynne visited Norton in 1827 and saw its successor, ‘rebuilt in a plain style without a steeple’. That building was replaced by the present church on a new site in Langton Road in 1894.

When the medieval church on Church Street was demolished about 1814 ‘the owner of Sutton Grange bought the font. It was placed in the garden… and was a treasured possession. It was presented by Mrs Wightman to the new church of St Peter in 1894,’ (McLane 1964, 6-7). This font is the only remnant of the medieval church.

The Domesday Survey says ‘M and B. In Nortone and Wellon [Welham]… A church is there, and a priest, and a mill of 10s. TRE it was worth 60s.; now the same.’(VCH II, 278). Welham Hall Farm is about 2km SW of the site of the old church in Norton.

Malton priory (YN) was founded in 1150 by Eustace Fitz John for the Gilbertines. According to Dugdale, the canons of Malton Priory had charge of 3 hospital houses for feeding the poor, and one was on an island in the Derwent, on the Norton side of the river, the gift of Walter de Flamville. Its chapel was dedicated to St Nicholas, but this was distinct from the first parish church (VCH III, 127). The church of Norton was given to the priory by Iveta de Arches, wife of Roger de Flamville (Dugdale, VI, 971, charter no. vii).

From the damage to parts of the supporting structure of the font, and from its similar colour of stone to the bowl, it might be supposed that the whole item, above the modern square plinth, was given by Mrs Wightman in 1894.

Similar arcading is cut in a less measured manner on a cylindrical font at East Ayton (YN), and other places.

Raine 1873, 188, refers to a previous dedication to All Saints.