Little Livermere

Human settlement in England

List of places: UK; England; Suffolk

52°18′40″N 0°44′13″E / 52.311°N 0.737°E / 52.311; 0.737

Little Livermere is a village and civil parish in England situated about 5 miles (8 km) north of Bury St Edmunds, in an area of Suffolk known as the Breckland. The population at the 2011 Census is included in the civil parish of Ampton.

In 1688 the Rector, James Paston, published a 39 page pamphlet supporting the repeal of the penal laws.^[1]

The village was almost entirely demolished in the 18th century when a park and mere were created in the grounds of the stately home, Livermere Hall, which was itself destroyed in 1923.^[2] Livermere Hall is thought to be the setting M.R. James had in mind for Castringham Hall in his ghost story "The Ash-tree", published in Ghost Stories of an Antiquary in 1904.^[3] James was the son of the Rector of nearby Great Livermere.

All that remains of the village is the much decayed Church of St Peter and St Paul, which is roofless and considered unsafe, and a farmhouse that stands adjacent to the church on the edge of Ampton Water.^[4]

References

^ PASTON, James (1688). A discourse of penal laws in matter of religion: endeavouring to prove that there is no necessity of inflicting or continuing them. First delivered in a sermon ... occasioned by his Majesties late gracious declaration for liberty of conscience, etc. author.
^ "Livermere Hall". Lost Heritage. 2 February 2020.
^ James, Montague Rhodes (2011). Darryl Jones (ed.). Collected Ghost Stories. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 429.
^ Knott, Simon. "St Peter and St Paul, Little Livermere". Suffolk Churches. Retrieved 2 February 2020.