The parish of Emneth is one of the most westerly within the county of Norfolk forming part of the county's border with neighbouring Cambridgeshire. Ecclesiastically Emneth was a chapelry of the Cambridgeshire parish of Elm, a minor curiosity of geography. Emneth is located roughly 3 miles southeast of the Cambridgeshire market town of Wisbech and lies just east of the A1122 road linking Wisbech with Downham Market. Emneth is a large and rather straggling village, almost a small town itself, a centre sits at a major crossroads junction whilst properties spread westwards and southwestwards towards the A1122 and also south from that centre. Emneth sits at the heart of Fenland, a vast low-lying area at or barely above sea-level which has been much man-influenced through drainage projects across the centuries. The rich soils recovered from that work lead to high-intensity farming with table vegetables a speciality alongside the tradition arable crops. Early gazetteers place almost half the parish acreage to pasture, that has long ceased to be as dominant a feature of this flat landscape. The course of the former route of the Nene defines Emneth and the county's western border but this is largely a cut-off channel today as broad drains channel water swiftly to the nearby Wash.

St Edmund's church sits on the northern side of Church Road, the most northerly of the three routes in from the A1122. Fenland churches are often quite majestic in scale and St Edmund is no exception. The church has its origins in the 13th century with the earliest portion being the chancel which is built in the Early English Gothic style of theearly half of that century, Pevsner cautiously dates the chancel to c1210. It is to the Perpendicular style of the 14th & 15th century that one must look for the true majesty of this church. The nave of six bays topped by a two-storey clerestory is a fine piece of work of that classic church style. By contrast the western tower shows many interventionary repairs of brick into its structure, the movements caused by the Fenland subsidence having to be repeatedly fixed, the tower is topped by an 18th century lead spirelet. Church Road is broad for a minor lane with adequate verges for parking by the churchyard entrance. The churchyard has a low brick wall separating it from the nearby road with wooden gates for entry. Whilst the churchyard is mostly open, mature trees steal the favoured southeastern aspects but leave sufficiently good views for the photographer.