Newton is a village two miles to the east of Sudbury. The main Sudbury – Colchester road runs through the village, but the church and hall lie at the end of a side road 0.4 mile north of the village centre. The church had fallen into a state of disrepair by the 1960s, the nave roof in particular being in a perilous state, and the decision was taken to retain the chancel for parish use and declare the nave and tower redundant, and these were taken into the care of the Redundant Churches Fund (now CCT). The two parts are divided at the chancel arch, which is blocked with large windows above and glazed doors below, giving the sense at least of a continuous space. The nave is unaisled and its north doorway, now blocked to form a window, is 12thc. The south doorway is 13thc and protected by a timber-framed porch, and the lateral nave windows were replaced in the early 14thc. On the south side is the wall-tomb of a lady dating from c.1300 with an effigy, and the nave also contains 14thc wallpaintings of Incarnation scenes, discovered in 1967. The chancel is entirely 14thc with a five-light reticulated east window, contemporary sedilia and piscina. It contains the elaborate wall-tomb of Margaret Boteler (d.1410). The west tower is 14thc too, except for the battlemented brick parapet. The church is of flint with brick-faced buttresses and a modern vestry of knapped flint has been added to the north side of the chancel. The only Romanesque feature is the north doorway.

The Domesday Survey records two manors in Newton (Babergh Hundred). Before the Conquest, the first was held as a manor by St Edmund’s, Bury, and in 1087 Adelund held it from the abbot. This manor was of two carucates of ploughland with woodland and meadow for cattle, pigs and sheep. The second was held as a manor by Uhtred, under King Harold before the Conquest and under Ralph de Limésy after it. This manor had two carucates of ploughland and similarly woodland and meadow for livestock. There was certainly a church on this second manor, in fact Domesday records two; the first, “a church with 30 acres of free land”, the second, “half a church with 8 acres of free land. In the same place 1 free man, half under Uhtred and half under St Edmund by commendation, but wholly in the soke of St Edmund.” A third entry under Newton in Domesday apparently relates to Old Newton (Stow Hundred).

Mortlock takes the view that the north doorway came from an earlier Norman building; Pevsner does not commit himself on this point. In either case a date in the 1130s or '40s seems likely.