South Stoke village is a mere 500m from the good roads which run across the downs south of Bath but is shielded from all the hustle and bustle by being just beneath the lip of the valley scarp. Geologically, the plateau N of the village is of Great Oolite Limestone, the valley to the S an area of landslip. The parish boundary follows Wansdyke to the N, Horsecombe Brook to the NE down to Midford Brook, Cam Brook to the Sand a side valley of the Cam Valley to the W. The church, on the SW edge of the small village along with the manor farm etc., lies at an altitude of 145m. It consists of a W tower, a nave, a N porch, a S aisle and a chancel; the N doorway is the only Romanesque remain.

There is no mention in Domesday Book for South Stoke.

The rosettes with pelleted circles are rather unusual. They appear to parallel the pateræ or roundels found at Old Sarum and Malmesbury Abbey, Wiltshire; St Nicholas, Kenilworth, Warwickshire; Lullington, Somerset; Portchester Priory, Hampshire; Bishop Alexander of Lincoln’s castle at Newark, Nottinghamshire; Llandaff and Hereford Cathedrals and Ashchurch and Forthampton, Gloucestershire. Roger Stalley attributes the distribution of these roundels to the family and political connections of Bishop Roger of Salisbury. Allan Brodie (in the CRSBI entry for Codford, St Mary) suggests that other examples, such as those at Codford St Mary, Wiltshire, may have been made by sculptors during the diaspora of workers from Bishop Roger’s workshop after the bishop’s death (see CRSBI site reports).