The Tivetshalls are a pair of straggling south Norfolk parishes, and it is difficult to unpick where the village of one stops and the village of the other begins. At the time of the 1851 Census of Religious Worship, when populations of rural parishes were reaching a peak, there were 353 people living in Tivetshall St Mary and a further 355 people in Tivetshall St Margaret - that is to say, they were almost exactly the same size. The two parishes formed a joint benefice, and the rector, one Samuel Frederic Bignold, was keen to emphasise that I am not aware of more than one (or two) families who do not attend divine service in the parish church. However the facts suggested otherwise, for just thirty-one people attended the morning service at Tivetshall St Mary, and ninety-five the afternoon service at Tivetshall St Margaret. This doesn't seem many out of a total benefice population of over seven hundred, and the afternoon figure included fifteen scholars who had no choice but to be there.

Slyly, Bignold appended the return for St Mary, without any reference to the attendance at St Margaret, excusing the low attendance by explaining that about 90 per cent of the population of this parish (at different times) attend the Parish Church...the service being in the morning is the reason for the attendance being so small, people almost universally preferring the afternoon service. In this strongly non-conformist area of Norfolk it simply beggars belief that there was any credibility in the Reverend Bignold's remarks, and he was either living in a fool's paradise or he was simply lying, although it is certainly true that Norfolk people preferred the afternoon sermon to morning worship, which was still considered by many of them to be 'popish'.

Although it had no aisles, Tivetshall St Mary was much the larger of the two churches. But by later in the century, possibly a direct result of the Reverend Bignold's folly and neglect, its condition had declined and both parishes seem to have preferred to use the other church. When Munro Cautley came this way in the 1930s for his great survey of Norfolk churches he recorded that he found a 14c plain tower... an extraordinarily plain building... the only things of interest are a plain Stuart table and the Arms of George IV... Plainness was not necessarily a bad thing in Cautley's eyes, for he hated over-restored churches and St Mary could not be accused of that. It was only in the early 20th Century that the thatched roof here was replaced and the building made sound. But St Mary obviously paled in comparison with St Margaret, one of Cautley's favourite churches. And then in 1949 St Mary paid for this lack of 19th Century attention when the tower collapsed into the nave. It was said by locals that an early jet plane had broken the sound barrier while flying low over the parish, and the sonic boom had sent a fatal tremor through the tower of St Mary.

To look at the church now it is hard to conceive that it was still in use within the lifetimes of some of its parishioners, the destruction was so complete. If it were not for the tracery of the great east window, you might not even recognise it as a church. However, the ruin is entirely accessible without having been tamed very much, which I like a lot. You can even enter through the old south porch, or what is left of it. And you can climb up on to the mound at the west end, formed by the rubble of that plain 14th Century tower. The churchyard is still maintained, the grass is cut within the ruin walls. The village war memorial sits beside the former south porch. The skeletal trees that surround it in early spring are a quiet counterpoint to the daffodils that spangle the rough ground between the headstones, and the trees will be full in leaf for summertime, making of this a verdant, beautiful place. And, as the years pass, the ruin of St Mary will continue to soften and fade, the rugged flint going back to earth, a plot of ground that will still be a touchstone, and proper to grow wise in.

Simon Knott, April 2023

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