[4] The village has a primary school,[5] a pub[6] and the disused St Lawrence's church, the tower of which collapsed in 1971,[4] has been repurposed as the St Lawrence Centre for Training and the Arts, hosting various music concerts, art exhibitions, craft fairs and charity events.

[7] The parish is also home to the South Walsham estate, purchased in 1946 by Major Henry Broughton, 2nd Lord Fairhaven, which remains in the ownership of the family.

South Walsham is recorded in the Codex Diplomaticus Aevi Saxonici as Súðwalshám[10] in a document produced during the reign of Edward the Confessor.

[11] Early documents suggest that land in the present parish was owned by a freeman named under Guert, the brother of Harold Godwinson[12] at the time of the Norman conquest of England, before passing under the stewardship of Godric the Steward.

[9][14] After the English Reformation, the abbey at St Benet's remained in use for some time, but had fallen into decay by the early stages of the reign of Elizabeth I.