The parish of Brandiston lies in East central Norfolk about 3 miles east of the small market town of Reepham. There is very little to modern day Brandiston, a scatter of farms and cottages across the lanes between Reepham and the B1110 road carrying traffic from Norwich to Holt. Brandiston was almost certainly a closed parish with most land held by a single landowner and inbound migration thus discouraged leading to no defined village developing. This status is enhanced by the parish church being tucked away almost in Haveringland and cheek-by-jowl with the Hall. A typical Norfolk arable farming community with almost 80% of the acreage set to cereal farming, little has changed and large open cereal fields still dominate the rather flat & featureless landscape, Brandiston sits at close to 40 metres above the sea and it is not till one comes to the Wensum valley to the south that any contours appear to dispute that height.

St Nicholas' church sits within the grounds of Brandiston Hall, a 17th century mansion of the Atthill family, and some half mile east of the notional centre of Brandiston as marked on modern maps. The church has ancient origins and Pevsner is quick to point to the circular tower as indications of an early church. What once sat here was a tiny Norman Romanesque church which was substantially enlarged in the 14th century. What was the nave & chancel of the Norman church is now the northern aisle of the mediaeval version. The replacement church is built in a mixture of Decorated and a few Perpendicular features which indicates an extended build crossing that style-change boundary. A substantial Victorian restoration of 1844 was followed in the early 20th century by a rebuild of the original Norman round-tower with its octagonal topping added. The church sits west of the Cawston to Horsford lane by roughly a quarter mile and is accessed by a rough track northwards from that lane, the churchyard arrives after close to 100 metres and is open and uncluttered with no obstacles to photography.