The parish of Ashwellthorpe lies in south central Norfolk about 3 miles southeast of the market town of Wymondham. Ashwellthorpe sits about a mile west of the B1113 road which connects the city of Norwich through to New Buckenham. Ashwellthorpe is a substantial and predominantly linear village spreading along an east to west running lane which heads west from the B1113 towards Wymondham. Today the area is intensively arably farmed with cereals, beet and oil seed dominating the rather plateau-like landscape, at the time of this transcript a more mixed farming regime would have underpinned the local economy. Ashwellthorpe, in common with other large villages close to Norwich, has recently expanded with new housing favoured by commuters to the nearby city.

All Saints' church sits on the northern side of the main lane, here called simply The Street. All Saints is a church principally built across the architectural style border between Decorated & perpendicular fashions. Pevsner dates its oldest features to the late 13th century and cites the western tower as an example of this earlier Decorated period. Documentary evidence, surprisingly a contract, to make the roofs, survives, dates these features to 1400+/- 1 year and much else was clearly finished by 1417 when the Thorpe Monument would have been commissioned to mark the death of Sir Edmund Thorpe in that year. The alabaster monument is the piece de resistance of the church and worth a visit in itself. In the 15th century a southern porch was added but little else was changed by the Victorian restorers. All Saints sits well back from the road, fronted by neatly clipped hedges and mown lawns. A gravel path crosses to wooden gates granting access to a spacious churchyard which has few impediments to photography.