One of the seven parish churches in the Burnhams, the series of villages lying in close proximity to each other in a once prosperous coastal region of north-west Norfolk. The medieval building at Burnham Ulph had a chancel and an aisleless nave. By the early 19thc. the chancel was partly ruinous, as recorded in J. S. Cotman’s engraving, published in 1838. The church was substantially rebuilt in 1879. The chancel arch, pointed and with a keeled soffit moulding, is supported on crocket capitals and is datable to c.1190. There are reused fragments of an earlier 12thc date in the SE chancel buttress.

Burnham lay in the Hundred of Brothercross, in territory held after the Norman Conquest by Roger Bigod, Hugh of Montfort and the abbot of Ramsey, who from 1087-1091 was Herbert de Losinga, subsequently Bishop of Norwich. The Burnham parishes, originally nine, all lie within a mile of Burnham Market, the largest of them. Collectively the Burnhams constituted an ancient estate which evolved into a flourishing mercantile centre, probably with the establishment of a market in the 13thc, when, in addition, the river Burn near which they lay, was still navigable. Burnham Ulph was amalgamated in 1422 with Burnham Sutton, whose parish church was demolished in 1771.

The barely legible reused Romanesque fragments in the external chancel buttress presumably came from the lost medieval structure. They are not recorded in Pevsner.