Woodland cathedral

Bishops don't darken church doors, of course, they lighten them. It's just that sometimes, as the Gospel writer put it, the light seems to be hiding under a bushel.

When the Bishop of Durham arrived to consecrate St Mary's church in Woodland in 1905, however, the Teesdale Mercury reported that Dr Handley Moule had delivered "an eloquent sermon never to be forgotten", adding that a packed church marked the occasion with heartiness, reverence and solemnity.

One hundred years later, the present Bishop of Durham was in Woodland last Sunday to help celebrate the little church's centenary. Though the village is barely ten miles from the episcopal seat, none of Dr Moule's successors had ever again made the trip.

"It's hugely exciting to be the next one in line after old Bishop Moule," the Rt Rev Tom Wright told a congregation as overflowing and as hearty.

"What changes in 100 years?" asked Jane Grieve, vicar of Woodland, Lynesack and Cockfield.

Woodland is a former colliery village, 1,132 feet above sea level on the hem of the west Durham moors. The main street's called The Edge; up there they live on it.

On a clear day, they reckon, you can see the Transporter Bridge in Middlesbrough and the Tan Hill Inn at the top end of Swaledale. Last soaking Sunday, you could hardly see across the road.

St Mary's was bought for £150 from a catalogue, arrived as a flat pack, is built of corrugated iron lined with pine and was erected by villagers. It's reckoned the last fully intact "tin tabernacle" in Durham diocese, though the folk of St David's, Tudhoe, may think otherwise.

Be it ever so humble, they love it and love it to bits. However grand more frequent haunts of Durham's bishops, this is Woodland Cathedral.

It has survived despite the drift from organised religion, the closure of the collieries and the Woodland winters. In 1965, the snow piled so high that it broke the back of the roof, the bairns clambering aloft to ring the single bell of St Mary's.

Allen Armstrong, one of the churchwardens, recalled a further local difficulty. "There was a tornado up here last back end, took Tommy Tarn's byre top off. If that had been the church, we'd have had it."

St Mary's stands, still, despite the threat of quinquennial inspection, an ecclesiastical term meaning five yearly fire and brimstone and used to put the fear of God, or of his appointed architect, into parochial church councils.

"I just hope that we're at the end of the five years," said Allen, cheerfully.

The church is in the parish of Lynesack - Butterknowle, effectively - though previously it had come under Staindrop's wing. In 1921, Woodland folk felt obliged to petition the bishop, complaining that although it was Lynesack's vicar who did all the work, it was Staindrop's who got the tithes.

"We are," they added, "practically unprovided for by way of spiritual ministration."

Now things are much different and last weekend they made a meal of it - baked not for Woodland, but for half of County Durham - with a concert on Friday evening by the Billingham Synthonia singers and on Saturday a wonderful exhibition of village history.

There were memories of snow and of scout troop, of garden club and tennis club, of Woodland Beagles and of the hacky-black economy - Arn Gill, Cowley and West Pits, White House Colliery, Crake Scarr Colliery and Woodland Colliery, known simply as the Back Pit.

The church looked splendid, the bishop likewise. Allen Armstrong explained that it had been built facing most of the winds, that it was on its fourth roof, that colliery craftsmen had lovingly made much of the church furnishings, and plate.

"With the help of the faithful congregation and the help of the Lord we will continue to worship here," he added, temporarily regardless of the quinquennial inspectors.

The vicar accompanied the bairns on guitar; Bishop Tom had been researching his predecessor, Dr Moule, who'd remarked in 1905 that it was a "dark period" in British history.

"I thought to myself how little he knew what the 20th century had in store," said the Bishop, as the rain drummed, percussively, against the roof.

Woodland folk had returned from all over Britain, or in the case of 87-year-old Florence Kennedy, from Barnard Castle, where she's now in a home. Florence had left Woodland when she was eight, but remembered it affectionately.

"They were the most wonderful people. Poor as church mice, you know, but so kind. Everybody helped one another.

"My father helped build that little church, one of three tin tabernacles at the time, I think. Everyone is still determined to keep it going."

Cyril Wallace and his wife Maggie had been in the same village school class as Florence, didn't marry until 1954 - "We both had family, you put them first in those days," said Cyril - and have never left the parish.

He also remembered Woodland school winning a music tournament - "all them schools from Darlington and Barney" - the children carried shoulder high down the street.

This time we sang Great is Thy Faithfulness and For All the Years, gave thanks for a century of witness, retired to the village hall for tea and cakewalk.

Liz Toes, 32 years in Woodland - "still a newcomer" - said they'd been planning for two years, had the date in the Bishop's diary even before he arrived in Durham.

"If someone said the church was going to close, there'd be an uproar. When we need support, we get it. Day by day it can sometimes be quite hard, but how wonderfully worthwhile when you look at this."

All agreed, the bishop devouring another piece of cake as if to make up for episcopal lost time. Tin tabernacle maybe, pre-fabulous beyond doubt.

THE Rev David Grieve, Jane's husband, was himself Vicar of Pelton, near Chester-le-Street, in the 1980s, before being forced to retire through ill health. "I'm the male equivalent of the vicarage wife," he says, cheerfully.

This year he formed a publishing imprint called Thambos Books - "a New Testament word implying great astonishment at God" - whose first publication is one of his own books of poems, illustrated with colour photographs.

The poems relate to the kingdom of Lesotho, which the Diocese of Durham has "adopted" and which David and Jane have several times visited.

All proceeds will go towards a project to restore and repair a hostel for young women from all over the country attending a domestic science course. "The work is strategic to the fight against AIDS, which is pandemic in Lesotho," he says.

* "Keep Us In Easter" costs £5, plus SAE, from the Rev David Grieve, 107 Front Street, Cockfield, Bishop Auckland, County Durham DL13 5AA.

www.thisisthenortheast.co.uk/features/