The parish of Stockton lies in the southeast of Norfolk close to the border with neighbouring Suffolk and just 3 miles northwest of the Suffolk market town of Beccles. Stockton sits just west of the A146 road which connects Beccles with the city of Norwich. There is very little to Stockton, a closed parish with most land held by a single landholder which limited inbound migration and resulted in no defined village, just a stretch of properties along a dead-end lane leading to the church. Stockton sits on a plateu of land above the valley of the nearby River Waveney, a fertile area of light soils which are exploited for the growing of arable crops, mainly cereals with beet and oil-seed common too. Stockton parish was a relative small rural parish in a county of small parishes, it covered less than 1,000 acres and its residents would have numbered barely above 100.

St Michael's church sits on the northern side of that dead-end lane, Church Road. The presence of a round tower is usually indicative of an early church and the rendered round tower of St Michael is Norman in age even if the spire topping it is of more recent vintage. A single lancet style window of the early English Gothic era immediately west of the porch belies what remains which is almost totally from the 14th century. The windows of both nave and chancel, therefore, tell of a significant rebuild in Decorated and then Perpendicular styles as fashions changed through that century. Further work followed with the addition of a porch in the 16th century and the Dutch gable in 1683. For once Pevsner does not mention a Victorian restoration so if one occurred it was light and sensitive. The church sits behind railings with metal gates granting entry. The churchyard is, however, beset by mature conifers which severely restrict the ability to pull back sufficiently to adequately capture the church by the photographer, a real challenge especially on a sunny day.