The nearest railway station is at North Walsham for the Bittern Line which runs between Sheringham, Cromer and Norwich.

The manor of Paston is listed in the Domesday Book of 1086[3] as Pastuna[4] from the Roman name Terra Pastorini ("Shepherds' Land"), one of the many English holdings of William de Warenne, 1st Earl of Surrey.

[9] The Paston estate was then acquired by Baron Anson, passing in the early nineteenth century to the Mack family.

[19] It includes a verse epitaph written by the famous metaphysical poet John Donne, Dean of St Paul's Cathedral in the City of London.

Stone also designed the adjoining monument to her husband Sir Edmund Paston (d.1632), comprising a plain urn on a bare base in an aedicule of black Doric columns.

[21] The chancel also contains three chest tombs, the one at the eastern end probably of John Paston (d.1466) who was originally buried in Bromholm Priory following a magnificent funeral at which were consumed forty barrels of ale.

[18] Surviving monuments to the Mack family include stained glass windows and memorial plaques within the nave.

The east window in memory of John Mack (d.1867) of Paston Hall was made by the firm of Clayton and Bell.

The south window next to the doorway of the rood loft is dedicated to Lt Cdr Ralph Michael Mack of the Royal Navy who went down with his ship HMS Tornado off the Dutch coast in 1917.

This perhaps helps to explain why today the lychgate entrance to the church stands on a small path to Paston Hall rather than on the road to the north.

[25] The dispute continued for a few years and in about 1451 Agnes wrote to another son, John Paston (1421–66), to tell him how an argument broke out on the subject after evensong on the Sunday before St Edmund's Day (i.e. in mid November).

Warren Harman, who had been leaning over the parclose screen and listening, then intervened, condemning the 'ruely change' and saying the 'town' was £100 worse off as a result.

The man was led down to the sea but when he managed to convince the raiders that he was indeed a pilgrim, they gave him money and put him back on land.

[30] In the eighteenth century Baron Anson acquired the estate from the impecunious William Paston, 2nd Earl of Yarmouth, and rebuilt the manor house on the same site.

To the south east is a small field known as the 'Duffus', which was the site of a medieval dovecote reached by a path along a double hawthorn hedge.

[32] Pevsner remarks that the roof span does not require hammer beams and that “they are here for show: the Renaissance magnate's love of bravado and expression of wealth”.