The parish Howe lies southeastern Norfolk roughly 7 miles southeast of the city of Norwich. Howe is a tiny place which sits just under a mile west of the B1332 road which links Norwich with the Suffolk market town of Bungay. Whilst Howe may be little more than a hamlet it incorporated the even smaller place of Little Poringland in ancient times, even collectively their joint population barely amounted to 100 folk. Much of Howe consists of a short strip of properties either side of the church and mostly on the lane's northern side, the narrow lane heads west from the B1332 towards Shotesham. Like most rural parishes in this area of Norfolk it was arable farming which largely sustained this small congregation, and today little has changed with big fields of cereals, beet and oil-seed dominating the local landscape. Despite the commuter growth of its near neighbour, Poringland (earning it the local smear of "Boringland"), Howe remains a tiny rural settlement gathered around its ancient church, the whole parish only covers 760 acres.

Like many small remote churches St Mary is an ancient structure, one of the earliest in the county, a fact revealed immediately by its characteristic round tower. Despite its more recent pyramidal roof the tower is as old as the 11th century and shows Saxon styling in the double-splayed windows and arch mouldings between the tower & nave. Even more interestingly and possibly even older are the Roman tiles incorporated into the southwestern corner of the nave. Much else of the church is from the typical church-building era that one finds across the county, the mixture of Decorated & Perpendicular styles that characterise a (re)build in the 14th century. The nave windows are in the early 14th century style of the Decorated whilst the chancel has a mixture of both styles. Like most churches a Victorian restoration made many changes, in the case of Howe it fell in the relatively late 1890s. The lane which passes the church, Howe Green, is narrow but with sufficient verge to allow careful parking. A tile-topped flint wall surrounds the churchyard which is open and uncluttered, since the church sits close to the street-side walling the better landscape views are actually from outside.