The parish of Mautby lies in the extreme east of Norfolk separated from its eastern North Sea coast only by the parish of Caister. Mautby is situated approximately 5 miles northwest of the resort & port of Great Yarmouth and lies about a mile south of the A1064 road which links Caister with Acle. Mautby has always been a relatively lightly populated parish, early gazetteers place the population as barely more than 50 folk, today there is little changed, no defined village just a scattered collection of farms and cottages running down from the A1064 to the grazing marshes bordering the River Bure. Whilst Mautby was a fairly typically sized parish of 1,600 acres over 30% was described as marshland, the haunt of reed-thatch harvesters, wildfowlers and eel-men. Almost all of the parish lies barely above sea level with only the area around the church creeping over the 5 metre contour, today the parish is a mixture of typical Norfolk arable farmland together with those grazing marshes by the Bure.

St Peter & St Paul's church sits toward the northern end of the parish just east of Mautby Lane and accompanied by a large farm and car repair shop. The presence of a round tower is usually indicative of an ancient church and Pevsner confirms that this one is 12th century Norman Romanesque work but topped with a later octagonal section, unusually for a round tower the internal space is square. Little remains of the 13th century southern aisle except remnants with the main body of the church, both nave and chancel, showing the Decorated style of the early 14th century. Work on the tower in the later 14th century saw a much larger Perpendicular style tower arch inserted, it is likely the octagonal top was added at that time, too. A series of restorations in both Victorian and relatively modern times has been made, the Victorian restoration in 1884 restored the nave whilst the chancel was restored in 1906 and more recently a further restoration more generally took place in 1984. Whilst St Peter & St Paul may be a fairly unremarkable country church it is its association with the Paston family, whose extensive series of letters gave insights into early life for a wealthy Norfolk family, that attracts many visitors, a notice board outside the churchyard highlights these events. The narrow lane on which the church sits is widened outside the churchyard allowing easy parking and the churchyard, itself, is open and uncluttered with no issues for the photographer.