STANDS the grammar school clock at five to five. And honey may still be for tea as cricketers saunter from the green towards a Sunday spread laid in the village hall. Scorton's stout slogger, whites all the creamier for the blue kerchief he probably wears too on his lorry-driving weekdays, has contributed lustily to the home team's 155 for eight.

Warm beer is sipped by a shirt-sleeved gaggle who have applauded dropped catches from outside the White Heifer. And close by, likely in a rose-gardened cottage beyond the field where there is archery practice, an old maid contemplates the bicycle ride to evensong.

For some, though, there is intrusion by twenty-first century tensions. Not the new sash windows in old houses around the green, for the PVC style is discreet; nor are homegoers from Croft circuit a problem, with drivers slowing to view the action; and, hey, it's a warm weekend so we'll worry tomorrow that the owners of the post office so want out they've cut their asking price by £15,000.

A pair of wrought-iron gates stand accused of being the unacceptable face of 2003. Their like have guarded the grammar school entrance for a couple of centuries. But today behind them and a "Private" notice are a few dozen newish houses and conversions of dorms where the pillow fights have long ceased.

Parish councillors regret the residents feel it necessary to close the gates: Scorton has "always tried to uphold a sense of community" and doesn't want a "separate entity" within it.

They fear the gates are the thin end of a wedge advancing, via our status-conscious Home Counties, from an America where anxious middle-class estates employ uniformed guards to patrol perimeter fences. In Darlington, buyers of a £1.5m quartet of houses have forfeited convenience and must open impressive ironmongery to emerge into leafy Carmel Road.

Anonymity of town life means people less readily feel slighted. Not so in villages. Compromise suggests the old guard should enjoy seeing toddlers play safely in Grammar School Court, while the incomers could still keep out cars by closing just one gate.

And both sides could answer the plea posted outside that threatened post office: help "keep the village alive" by joining the cricket club.