The parish of Barton Bendish St Mary lies in western Norfolk about 7 miles west of the market town of Swaffham. Despite being only a small village sitting a mile south of the A1122 road which connects Swaffham with Downham Market, Barton Bendish is home to two parishes and two extant churches, St Mary is the smaller of the two. This area of Norfolk is quite low in elevation, the Norfolk Fens being little distance away, yet sits also on the edges of Breckland giving the soils a very light and sandy nature, much prone to wind removal after dry winter conditions. Despite these difficulties the parish was essentially a typical Norfolk arable farming parish, vast cereal fields dominate the landscape today whereas at the time of this transcript it would have been a more intimate and small scale operation. The flat landscape hereabouts proved too tempting for World War 2 planners and land was taken for building nearby Marham airfield which survives in military use today and dominates much of this area of the county.

St Mary's church is the smaller of the two churches in the village, incredibly there were once 3 with All Saints being consolidated with St Mary in 1788 and demolished. St Mary was declared redundant in 1976 and is preserved by charitable trust. The church has its origins in the Decorated period, broadly covering the 1st half of the 14th century, despite the apparent Norman western doorway which came from All Saints. Most of the windows of both nave and chancel show the characteristic tracery of those times. The church has, however, had mixed fortunes, in 1710 the former western tower fell taking with it part of the western end of the nave, repairs were only completed in 1789 but the tower was not rebuilt. Victorian restorations of both 1858 and 1871 made general repairs and restoration whilst adding the bellcote. The lane heading to Boughton, Boughton Long Road, performs a sharp right-angled bend at the western end of the village and from here a dead-end lane heads northwards to the former church's site. Sadly the churchyard is heavily wooded making for quite a challenge for the photographer despite the small size of the target.