SCORTON has a raised village green, said inaccurately to be circular and more reliably to be one of only three in England and used by both men's and women's cricket teams.

It's a bit like Subutteo, table-top cricket, save for a far greater chance of breaking a leg when hurling headlong over the boundary. There's a two-foot drop all around.

The green last Sunday evening was yet more populous than normal, at one end Jimmy Parker's Supreme Amusements and others of that itinerant ilk cheerfully setting up stall, at the other the no less ubiquitous Reeth Silver Band winding up towards an open air church service and hoping that rain might not stop play.

They were a band recognised as going out to enjoy themselves, said Keith Jeffrey, the acting conductor. Paraphrased, they'd just been to the pub.

Scorton is in North Yorkshire, a few miles east of Richmond, perhaps best known for St John of God's Hospital and for the late Brother George, its indefatigably incorrigible chief fund raiser.

Since 1257, they reckon - or the Darlington and Stockton Times reckons, and that's holy writ enough around there - the village has also celebrated Scorton Feast, around the festival on August 15 of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

St Mary's Church at Bolton on Swale, where half a mile down the road the grave of Henry Kenkins marks his passing at the age of 169, predates the Feast by several hundred years. Originally it was a purely religious occasion, a holy day turned holiday.

Ron Rawling, for 52 years a member of the Feast committee, served at the Scorton RAF base during the war, liked it so much that he married a local lass and became a village shopkeeper.

Originally, he reckoned, such 'feasts' were the serfs' only days off. There'd be a barrel of beer in the church porch - "kept away evil spirits" - and races with ale to the winners.

"The faster you were, the more beer you got to drink," said Ron.

Though Scorton claims 750 years uninterrupted Feasting, by the 1940s expectations had changed. It was, noted the programme, 'principally a jollification for children'.

The 1946 programme, called The Scorton Arrow in deference to the village's historic setting as home to the archers, also carried adverts for Johnson's Premier Band (Phone: Old Catterick 72) and Atkinson's Atomic Fish and Chips, listed 'sports' like apple grabbing, bun eating, musical chairs and slow cycle riding and had a tongue-in-cheek warning that any committee man found kissing the Feast queen would be fined ten shillings.

In 1947, it was noted, the older generation were going around telling people how much better things had been in their day. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Now it is a vibrant four-day event, though folklore gloomily has it that when Scorton Feast ends, winter begins. The Sunday evening service on the green was revived around 45 years ago by the Rev Frederick Cranshaw, is now ecumenical but possibly dates from the 13th century.

"There were no Methodists in those days," said Ruth Wigram, Vicar of Bolton on Swale and surrounding parishes.

"No Anglicans either," said Andrew Champley, Richmond's superintendent Methodist minister.

They were joined by Fr Robert Moore from St John of God's, who prayed that Scorton folk might be good neighbours and in doing so may have scratched a rash. Scorton, as Yorkshire folk would say, has had an avalanche of oftcumdens.

Curate in the parish a decade ago, the Rev Jennifer Williamson had been invited back to give the sermon and remarked how much had changed. Whenever there was an influx of newcomers into an area, she said, so there were bound to be tensions.

"Tradition matters, but it isn't good for a community for there never to be any people joining it. Tradition can give stability but it can also strangle initiative."

Both old and new were needed for the benefit of the village, added Mrs Williamson, and added that Scorton might have preferred it if she'd stayed where she was and not stirred up the debate.

"The new are needed to bring renewed energy to a village and to challenge tradition when it strangles rather than stabilises. Change is vital for life. It defines life. A stone doesn't change."

Perhaps because there was no roof to raise, the singing seemed rather subdued, as if not to disturb the lads drinking outside the Farmers Arms and the White Heifer or even the fun of the fair men.

Even when we essayed O For a Thousand Tongues to Sing, it seemed like a couple of dozen might have to suffice.

At Jennifer Williamson's request, we also sang Through All the Changing Scenes of Life. On Scorton's up and at 'em village green, Sunday evening seemed pretty timeless, nonetheless