The county boundary with Cambridgeshire is adjacent, with the city of Cambridge 25 miles (40 km) to the south.

WWT Welney, near the village, is a nature reserve in the care of the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust.

Nearby there are also the RSPB Ouse Washes, a reserve managed by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds.

[citation needed] For the purposes of local government the parish falls within the district of King's Lynn and West Norfolk.

[2] In 1820 a road was built from Welney across The Wash to the New Bedford River (also known as the Hundred Foot Drain), where a ferry-boat was established opposite the public house of Thomas Golding, formerly Washington's; this provided a direct route into Lincolnshire through Wisbech from Bury St Edmunds, Ely and Cambridge.