TO the great festivals of the Christian church - Easter, Christmas, harvest when the farmer can be fussed - may be added a more occasional and more moveable feast, the visit of the At Your Service column.

At the lovely, Frosterley marbled church of St Bartholomew in Thornley, the congregation might sometimes only be three. "Me, Bob and 'ard Betty', if there's six it's a bus trip," says churchwarden Ronnie Dowson, splendid in Sunday best braces.

Special occasions are different. "If there's owt on they're there like fleas round a jam pot," says Ronnie and last Sunday - "real three line whip job" - is clearly judged to be special.

Around 25 are convivially congregated, and if that hardly constitutes overcrowding it has to be remembered that it's about a third of the village population. Among them are Canon Bill Broad, recently retired rector of Great Aycliffe, and his no less splendid wife Daphne. The morning is humid, what folk in those parts call close.

The attentive will have realised that last week's column came from Thornley, too, but that was the former mining community in east Durham.

This was the Thornley at the bottom end of Weardale, a mile off the A68 but a world away from it, though Hutchinson's 1794 history of Co Durham recorded a "considerable" colliery there as well.

Now it is the most idyllic, the most tranquil, the most perfect village in all Christendom - or at least in Christendom below 1,000 feet. If there's a problem it's not just that it gets a bit confusing but that both Thornleys have a parish church dedicated to St Bartholomew.

It may not be God's law, but it sounds awfully like sod's.

"We get all sorts of people looking for the other one, I just point them towards Peterlee and tell them to ask again," says Margaret Collinson, who calls it the Dickens Village because so little seems to have changed.

The tale is also told of the funeral party which headed down the A68 from Edinburgh, mistakenly found itself at the more westerly Thornley ("Thornley-in-the-Dales," says Margaret) and decided there to rest, in peace.

It's effectively a cul-de-sac - but by no means a dead end - with views. "I think what's so special about it is that it's so secret, so private," says Bob Southern, the other churchwarden. "You have to have a reason for coming here."

Bob also worries about the cost of maintaining the church. "Everything's going up and it's us who have to find it. The trouble with the Church is that there are too many hangers on, they could do with getting rid of a few bishops and archbishops.

"They come here every few years, tell us what to do, give us a whipping and then drive off with their chauffeurs in their BMW Series 7s."

Ronnie Dowson says there used only to be the church and the farm and now there's only the church. "It would be a tragedy if it closed. You can't imagine Thornley without the church."

All we could immediately remember about the place was that it was home to Leslie Gamble, who became Britain's best known insomniac - local word was that a suitcase had fallen on his head at London Airport - and the subject of much medical research.

Now in his 80s, Mr Gamble has moved to Edinburgh but is believed still not to be sleeping on it. "I think he gets about a minute-and-a-half," says Ronnie.

Though the village once had Methodist chapel, California Inn and primary school - closed in 1958 when numbers fell to three - it had never amounted to much in the first place.

The church was built for £350 in 1838, men in the north aisle and women in the south, the tower added 53 years later. Electricity came to Thornley in 1946, domestic water a few years earlier.

Betty Richardson - "they called me Lizzie at school, I hated it" - was born in Thornley on St Swithin's Day 89 years ago. She remembers the whole village lit by tilly lamps, the three stand pipes which provided water - "If you didn't get there at night, it would be frozen next morning" - the church boiler which had to be lit on Saturday night and beneath which they cooked the most memorable roast potatoes.

She is the "ard Betty" of Ronnie Dowson's faithful recall, as gentle and delightful a lady as ever knocked on ninety's door and one of the villagers who made the church's wonderful carpet and pew coverings.

"There used to be three services every Sunday," she remembers. "My father was churchwarden, my brothers rang the bell and blew the organ, my mother boiled the linen in the great big pot on the fire."

Sunday's service is led by Malcolm Goodall, Vicar of Thornley and of the church of St Mary and St Stephen in Wolsingham, further up Weardale. "They couldn't agree which saint to have, so they had them both," he says.

Coincidentally, it's also the feast of the Blessed Virgin Mary and since he's had the grandchildren all week, he tells them, he's not had time to write two sermons. St Bartholomew's has a Marian sermon, as well

It ends with the joke about the departing vicar, flattered to be told by an elderly parishioner that they'll never get a better man. "I've seen five vicars here," says the old boy, "and every one worse than the last."

The liturgy is from the Book of Common Prayer. We sing Morning Has Broken and For the Beauty of the Earth, the service over in 45 minutes. There's coffee at Bill Broad's and whisky ("you want nowt wi' coffee) at Ronnie Dowson's.

It's been a truly lovely morning, and Ronnie thinks he knows why. "It's been a lot different from when there's just three here," he says. "Can you come back again next week?"

Tea and wedding dresses

NO better opportunity to visit Thornley than next weekend, when as part of the Weardale Festival, church and village hold an exhibition of wedding dresses through the ages and serve their widely renowned teas.

Everyone bakes like billy-oh, and is probably baking at this moment. Like Chantilly lace, they're simply billed as Thornley Teas. Everyone understands.

"They're notorious," says Margaret Collinson, by which she means that they're celebrated by tea men and trenchermen throughout the region.

The wedding gowns stretch from the 1890s, when the bride customarily wore black - so they reckon - to the dress worn by the young lady who will be married at St Bartholomew's this very afternoon. They're getting some of her flowers, too.

Teas are served in the village hall on August 28 to 30 from 2-5pm, the wedding dress and local history exhibition is in church from 11-4.30pm on all three days. Further details of the Weardale festival from the tourist information office, (01388) 527650. Usual Sunday morning service at St Bartholomew's is at 9.30am.