The Domesday Survey records that St Edmundsbury Abbey held Whepstead as a manor with 5 carucates of ploughland, 10 acres of meadow and woodland for 40 pigs. In the same place were 6 free men with 11/2 carucates of land, held by Ralph except for 30 acres. There was a church with 30 acres of free land. The abbot's manor house at Whepstead was one of 13 burnt by disaffected townsmen and tenants during the so-called Great Riot of 1327; a protest against the abbey's bad management of their estates and their alleged failure to meet their commitments.
At the Dissolution the manor came into the possession of the Drury family, lords of Hawstead.
In 1535 part of the income of the leper hospital of St Petronilla in Bury St Edmunds was derived from temporalities in Whepstead, which may account for the unusual dedication.
Benefice of Horringer with Westley, Whepstead and Brockley.