The parish of Shipdham lies in central Norfolk roughly 5 miles southwest of the market town of East Dereham. Shipdham sits on the A1075 road which connects East Dereham with Thetford and is a substantial and largely linear village stretching for almost 2 miles along the main road with many properties also along the lane leading southeast towards Cranworth. At one time Shipdham was a small market town in its own right, its market charter granted in the reign of Henry III for both a Thursday market and an annual fair. Sadly those regional functions have passed away to larger nearby settlements such as Thetford & East Dereham but Shipdham retains its facilities of inns, shops and specialist businesses as a substantial regional village. Like most Norfolk parishes Shipdham's wider parish was chiefly engaged in arable farming, early gazetteers place as much as 75% of the parish acreage as set largely to cereals, the landscape around the village being "rather flat" as Norfolk is wont to being portrayed, the excellent soils being ideal for cereals, beet & oil seed, the growing of which still dominates the local landscape. The parish was extremely extensive for one in Norfolk, it covered just over 3,400 acres around twice the size of a typical Norfolk rural parish.

All Saints' church sits alongside the A1075 as it passes through the village, forcing the main road to make a pair of dog-leg right-angled turns around its churchyard as it does so. Whilst much of the church is of the typical 14th century stylings found regularly in the county the church has earlier origins. Pevsner identifies the priest's doorway as the earliest piece giving it the tentative date of no later than 1190, placing it within the Norman Romanesque period and making the church quite early within its county. Internally the unusual pillar piscina within the chancel is contemporaneous with that doorway. The church's standout piece is its tower, the tower is 13th century, Early English Gothic, but sits upon a brick-base that is much later, its crowning glory is its three-tier lantern, of uncertain date but certainly pre-19th century, of wood with a lead covering, it reminded Pevsner of similar features on Russian Orthodox churches of eastern Europe. Much else is typically a mixture of the 14th century Decorated, southern & northern doorways and the northern arcade show it well and the clerestory appears to be of this early style too, and Perpendicular styles for much of the rest. The church has experienced the usual Victorian restorations for which Pevsner declines to give a date on this occasion. The churchyard is surrounded by a typical flint & brick wall within which sits a churchyard relatively devoid of obstacles for the photographer.