In a marked contrast to that of a predecessor, St Michael's church, in Bishop Middleham, was sorry for the Rev Adele Kelham's departure.

UNAMBIGUOUSLY assailed by the Morning Chronicle as a "mitred termagent, the spirit incarnate of malice and all uncharitableness", Henry Philpotts was Vicar of Bishop Middleham from 1806-1810 - though in 1808 he had also become Rector of Gateshead, shifted himself to Tyneside and had his stipend sent on.

By 1809, he was further rewarded by preferment as a Canon of Durham and in 1830, became Bishop of Exeter, having also found time in less pastoral moments to father 18 children.

The 19th century diarist Charles Greville thought him an "old fawning sinner", a parliamentary correspondent noted that in the House of Lords he had a rough and ugly face, vehement speech and a tongue and eyes of flame.

Actions speaking louder than words, the good folk of Exeter burned his effigy in the Cathedral Close.

Adele Kelham became Bishop Middleham's vicar almost 200 years later. Last Sunday, variously described as a ministering angel and as a miracle, she left after just three fair to Middleham years but for very good reason.

Officially half time, perpetually all hours - "You can be a half time vicar but you're always a full time priest," she said - she had borne as much resemblance to Henry Philpott as Saddam Hussein to the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Bishop Middleham, for 300 years a country retreat for medieval Bishops of Durham - some of those lads not exactly a pot model of piety, either - is somewhere near the heart of County Durham.

The motorway speeds nearby but forever declines to call in; the A171, little more sociable, is a mile or two to the east.

"It must be confessed that Bishop Middleham has always been an inward looking village, minding its own business and cut off from the main highways," wrote Newton Haile in his 1982 history of church and village.

Just about the village's greatest excitement, memory suggests, came two or three years ago when a pair of greater spotted fly catchers (or some such feathered fantasia) nested nearby and a squadron of bird watchers followed to pen their twitch reports.

The Rev Adele Kelham, widowed with four grown-up sons, flew in every bit as unexpectedly. Born in Sheffield, she moved to Switzerland after university when her husband found work there, became a translator - "just English, French and German," she says, when asked which languages she speaks fluently - and famously worked for the Rolling Stones.

She returned to study theology at Cranmer Hall, Durham, was ordained in 1998, took up office in the Diocese of Durham in 2001.

Now she is heading back to be priest-in-charge of Lausanne, thought to be the first woman priest-in-charge in the Anglican Diocese of Europe. "Unfortunately our bishops haven't always favoured the full time ministry of women," she says with something approaching Swiss diplomacy.

"I'm not very big on that sort of thing, but it's a real encouragement to other women."

Her final service, 10am at the attractive 13th century church of St Michael, is also attended by members of five neighbouring churches - Sedgefield, Fishburn and the Trimdons - which in the spring are expected formally to unite as the Parish of the Upper Skerne and now haven't a stipendiary priest between them.

Eight days after Christmas, it's Epiphany already. The bit about wise men following a star seems somehow appropriate.

Before the service, several in the congregation compare flu bugs, as if there were a better class of cold at Trimdon Station, while others rehearse what they know about Switzerland - chocs, clocks and no docks a pretty passable summary.

Adele, renowned for her sense of humour, announces at the start that there's a bucket by the door for tsunami appeal donations. "I have been advised against calling it a relief bucket," she says. "I know we don't have any facilities."

The service is dominated by events in the Indian Ocean, their import addressed head on in the departing vicar's extraordinarily heartfelt and memorably lucid sermon. "Where is the child born the King of the Jews?" she begins. "Absent? Looking the other way? This may be the question we have been asking ourselves for the past week."

There were other questions, too - "In the midst of suffering, how can it be that our loving God rules the world?" - but always a faith and always an answer.

"We have no promise of immunity from suffering, but we do have the promise that He will be with us always... God loves us so much, he became vulnerable."

To the tune of the 23rd psalm, a well filled church also lights individual candles as an act of remembrance. What with that, the farewells and the much bigger than usual numbers, it's 11am when a woman in the pew behind whispers that she's glad she hadn't a chicken in the oven, and 11.35 before the service finishes.

By 11.35, it should be said, there are good County Durham folk who've not only taken the chicken out of the oven but eaten it, done the washing up and are wondering what's for tea.

Afterwards there are presentations - "a cornucopia," says Adele - including a shepherd's crook that shouldn't be mistaken for an episcopal mitre, not even in Bishop Middleham.

Neil Stevenson, one of the churchwardens, recalls that when the last vicar left, the diocese planned not to replace her and that when Adele came they proudly told her they'd fixed the roof.

Then the boiler gave up the ghost, the resultant replacement disturbing rather too many skeletons and employing as many archaeologists as heating engineers.

"She has been a miracle in many ways," says Neil. "She has a wonderful gentleness and prayerfulness, the kids adore her and she's even helped sort the re-organisation. Her contribution has been enormous; I don't want her to go, I don't think anyone wants her to go."

"I think you should take a vote," says Adele.

She is leaving primarily because one of her sons, a schizophrenic, is seriously ill in a Swiss clinic. "People in his situation are better if the family are around him. It's difficult to be around him from here."

Two of the other boys, an Indian and a Brazilian with learning difficulties - "a superb person," says Adele - were adopted. Particularly she will remember the ancient church, the many faces who became friends, the cathedral at Durham. Europe's cathedral is in Gibraltar. "It's not terribly handy," she says.

Almost an hour after the service ends, they're still waiting to say their goodbyes. A Swiss miss, beyond argument.