Villagers all, this frosty tide,

Let your doors swing open wide,

Though wind may follow, and snow beside,

Yet draw us in by your fire to bide;

Joy shall be yours in the morning!

This is the first verse of the carol that the field mice sing when stood outside Mole’s front door one Christmas time in the Wind in the Willows.

As I write this at the beginning of July, it does seem strange to hark back to winter but one of our discoveries soon into the new year was that St Andrew’s had sheltered in that “frosty tide” a few mice.

As well as our church mice, we also give sanctuary to butterflies and ladybirds, who grace us with their presence in spring. Occasionally, a bumblebee will make a devotional visit and of course there are spiders who play the never ending game of “chase around” with the duster.

The earliest known use of Church Mouse as a noun is from the mid-sixteenth century in the writing of the English theologian John Barthlet (f 1566). However mice have lived in our churches from the beginning. A legend has grown up around the Michaelmas mouse present at Christ’s nativity and of course the medieval carvers relished in depicting the mouse as companion to the cat or owl on the choir stalls of Cathedrals, Minsters & Churches 

One of the most familiar phrases concerning mice is “poor as a church mouse”. It is allegedly derived from the fact that unlike their prosperous cousins who were able to live in the  granaries and larders, churches were never a place where food was stored as after communion has been given, the bread and wine are completely consumed by the priest“leaving no crumbs”.

Such is the affection for church mice that they have entered our literature and our art, often in beautifully illustrated works for children such as The Church Mice story books by the children,s author Graham Oakley (1929-2022). Other examples include the much loved poems of John Betjeman (The Diary of a church mouse) and the Irish born poet Joe Hughes (The Church Mouse).

Inspired by the devotion of our real church mice, we are currently displaying in St Andrew’s Church a wonderful but small collection of Church mice created by the sculpture Nick Hunter and produced by Oak Apple Designs.

Why not come along to South Thoresby and see them yourself ? You may not necessarily find them all, as with the real life ones, they can be very illusive.