'Much Obscured by Vegetation:' The Ruins of St Michaels Church, Sco Ruston

Between Coltishall and North Walsham lie the ruins of the medieval church of St Michael, in the tiny parish of Sco Ruston. Not far from a fairly well-used road, the ruins are nevertheless well hidden beneath a great deal of ivy: it's quite difficult to even get a sense of the shape of the exterior because of this. Yet the interior, despite the lack of a roof and the trees growing up through the floors, feels oddly spacious and preserved, in a forgotten kind of way. Midday winter light streaming through the doors gave a genuine sense of warmth.

The ruins are Grade II listed. The English heritage report includes the observation, "Much obscured by vegetation."

The Ruins of St. Michael

The ruins of the medieval parish church of St. Michael, Bowthorpe. Desacrilized in the Reformation, the church supposedly fell into total ruin at the end of the eighteenth century.

In the 1970s, with Bowthorpe being developed as a suburb of Norwich, the Bowthorpe Church Centre was built, and it is this church that serves the community today. St. Michael's occupies the same grounds: indeed, its crumbled walls constitute part of the Church Centre's garden of remembrance.

Both churches overlook the shopping trolley-swamped carpark of the local shopping precinct.