Norfolk is rather well-endowed with villages named Beeston, the suffix "next Mileham" serves to distinguish this mid-Norfolk village from the others. Beeston is located in central Norfolk roughly 6 miles west of the market town of East Dereham. Beeston sits about 2 miles north of the busy A47 road which crosses Norfolk from King's Lynn in the west through the city of Norwich to Great Yarmouth in the east. Beeston is a somewhat dispersed village occupying an area resembling a slight slanted and squared-off figure "8" and covering a little over a half mile in both north to south and east to west axes. Beeston sits on something of a plateau within the mid-county, whilst Norfolk is generally reckoned to be "rather flat", this area resembles the cliche, sitting at 70 metres above the sea there is no contour for several miles from the village. Like most Norfolk parishes Beeston was a farming parish and cereals, beet and oil seed dominate the landscape still. The presence of a World War 2 airfield, now defunct as an operation base, has enabled a small light industrial estate to develop varying the rural economy somewhat.

St Mary's church stands in splendid isolation a mile west of the village on the southern side of Church Road, a rural lane heading towards Great Dunham. St Mary is unusual for its county in possessing a spire, a curiously rare feature for Norfolk churches. In all other respects it is a fairly typical example of a Norfolk church built in a mixture of Decorated & Perpendicular styles reflecting a build which begins in the late 13th and continues through most of the 14th century. Much of the church is early and Decorated, the western tower, with the exception of the bell-stage, the chancel and northern porch are all in this style, as is the clerestory, normally a Perpendicular feature this one dates to c1410 and it too is Decorated. The arcades follow in a mixed style that sits at the cusp of the fashion change whilst that bell-stage was added fully in a Perpendicular period style. Internally the nave roof impressed Pevsner with its use of hammerbeams with their fine carved figures. Church Road runs between open and very flat fields and the church sits isolated with no adjoining properties overlooking said fields. A broad verge allows parking at the eastern end of the site which is hedged to the road, a gravel path leads into the churchyard which is fairly restricted in terms of those angles available to the photographer, the height of tower and spire being tricky to capture accordingly.