The parish of Earlham lies roughly 2 miles west of the city of Norwich and sits on the B1108 road which connects the city through to Hingham & Watton. Earlham was once a discrete small parish with green space between it and the nearby city but over the years the inexorable growth of Norwich has engulfed the former village and Earlham is nowadays an integral suburb of Norwich. Late Victorian maps show St Mary's church together with Earlham Hall as the main points of interest in what was a small farming community, largely pastoral, sitting on the eastern banks of the River Yare as it passes around the western approaches of the city. Modern developments, particularly the 1960s growth of Norwich's peripheral social housing estates now connect Earlham though to older areas of the city. Earlham nowadays is also home to the University of East Anglia built in the latter half of the 20th century in a somewhat brutalist style of architecture on what had once been the estate of Earlham hall and the city's municipal golf course. Traces of farmland still remain along the water-meadows of the Yare but in most respects Earlham is no longer the rural village it once was.

St Mary's church sits on the northern side of the B1108 immediately east of the latter's crossing of the Yare. Whilst the church was clearly extensively remade during the great church-building era of the Perpendicular period there is a core of the church which goes back to very early times. Pevsner identifies Norman Romanesque features from the 12th century in both northern and southern windows of the western tower whilst the western wall of the nave has carstone blocks which he identifies as clearly Norman and 12th century. The presence of long-and-short quoining at the northwestern corner is not specifically determined as Saxon work but is typical of that style and period. Documentary evidence suggesting the tower was given its battlements in 1524 is a typical date for the period of rebuilding in the Perpendicular style but maybe is toward the end of that building period rather than the beginning. For once Pevsner does not mention a Victoria restoration so if one occurred it was light and sensitive. A shallow lay-by sits outside the churchyard allowing an extended visit with a short flight of steps rising into the churchyard which, at first glance appears over-crowded with trees but with care enough angles can be found by the creative photographer.