THE former colliery villages of County Durham, understand, are places where a man likes his four square meals a day and then wonders about a bite at bedtime. Thus when a "faith tea" is advertised for 4pm - before the service, not after it - one of the real wonders is that half of them have lasted all that time since Sunday dinner, without failing through lack of nourishment.

Once known as a love feast, the faith tea may be a peculiarly Methodist tradition, in which it's hoped that everyone will try to bring something to the chapel table.

The other great wonder is that such repasts always offer a wonderful variety, and that the same thing is never brought twice. Faith may indeed move mountains, but it makes for a very canny spread, an' all.

This was at New Brancepeth Methodist church, west of Durham, and though the morning's papers had reported that Methodist Central Hall in London was applying for an alcohol licence, in New Brancepeth there was nothing more potent than Rington's best.

The Rev Walter Attwood - minister, bird watcher, enthusiastic walker - was rightly anxious to talk about the little known natural delights of that part of the Deerness Valley.

"There are hidden treasures which should be exploited," he said, adding a little hurriedly that they didn't want them exploiting too much. "We don't want too many coming here."

Mr Attwood also proved something of an expert on faith teas, recounting that when he served in Peterhead, that northern Scottish town's ministers had decreed that such events had become "too competitive" and should be replaced by a cup of tea and a biscuit.

The decision wasn't well received. "The women were black affronted," said Mr Attwood, the phrase hitherto known only to have existed within the pages of The Broons annual.

Still manifestly cared for, the chapel was built for £580 in 1877, primarily to serve the pit village of Sleetburn, of which it was then at the heart.

Though Sleetburn is all but gone, New Brancepeth in its place to the west, Mr Attwood hopes to create a miners' memorial garden on the land next to the chapel which overlooks the vanished village.

"Some people try to give New Brancepeth a bad name, but really there are some lovely, good hearted people here," said Sheila Bowerbank, the church secretary, whose husband Dennis is steward.

It was a Songs of Praise service for Wesley Day, officially last Tuesday, Methodists from Ushaw Moor, Esh Winning, Brandon and Bearpark cheerfully united on a lovely May afternoon fresh with the smell of woodbine - and not the sort which the late Bobby Thompson used to smoke, whenever they weren't being greeded off him.

A sticker in one of the cars read: "It's hard to be humble when you own an Alsatian", though the owner doubtless managed it, regardless.

Iris Simpson, New Brancepeth's organist for 28 years, played "All is safely gathered in, ere the winter's storms begin" by way of warm-up. It seemed a little premature.

Sometimes known as Aldersgate Day, Wesley Day commemorates May 24, 1738, when John Wesley in his Journal recorded a morning of "strange indifference, dullness and coldness" and "unusually frequent lapses into sin".

In the evening, he had gone "very unwillingly" to a Society in Aldersgate Street, London, and there felt his heart "strangely moved". The rest is church history, those words from his Journal more familiar - said Mr Attwood - than most passages from the Bible. Led by local preachers Mary Tribe and Bill Offler, the service was a celebration of what later might have been called Charles Wesley's greatest hits - Love Divine All Loves Excelling (sung, apparently to a tune called Blindworm), O Thou Who Camest From Above and the unsurpassable O For A Thousand Tongues To Sing.

The younger Wesley had written 18 verses, Methodism's decision to annexe ten of them wholly reprehensible. For Anglican hymn books to publish but six is a matter over which the Archbishop of Canterbury should personally be held to account, and probably made to resign.

They were very good singers and very nice people - all anxious to keep the flame burning in their villages, all sustained by the face to faith tea.

"We sometimes feel," prayed Mary Tribe near the end, "that we aren't enough to change our local communities, never mind the whole world."

Like the lady who said how pleased she was to meet the man from The Northern Echo - "Can I just say how much I enjoy Horace and Doris" - some stayed behind for a chat.

Others hurried homeward. Doubtless it was time for supper.

* Next Saturday's column will come from St Peter's church in the half-hidden village of Cleasby - on the southern bank of the Tees, about five miles west of Darlington - where a flower festival in aid of church funds takes place this weekend.

The church will be open from 10am-5pm today and 11am-4pm on Sunday, admission by programme £1.50. Tomorrow at 6.30pm the Rt Rev James Bell, Bishop of Knaresborough, leads a Songs of Praise service. Perhaps they'll have O For A Thousand Tongues.