Spending almost £3m on restoring a small village church to it former glory after it was destroyed by fire might seem excessive to some, but villagers are certain they are doing the right thing.

BRANCEPETH is what journalists call a sleepy village. It may explain why, when fire destroyed the historic parish church in the early hours of September 16, 1998, when seven fire engines and assorted other emergency crews clashed clangorously down the chocolate box street, barely a soul knew of it.

By the time they did, the Grade I listed Norman church of St Brandon was wholly gutted - and that's when the good folk of Brancepeth really stirred themselves.

The inferno had been spotted by a policeman passing half a mile away.

Temperatures reached 1,200 centigrade, the blaze so fierce that despite intensive investigation a cause was never discovered.

Only the blackened walls remained, priceless 17th century woodwork reduced to ashes. Now autumn's bitter embers have been replaced by the fragrance of spring.

Though the village between Crook and Durham has fewer than 400 residents and the church a good day congregation of 50, residents at once decided that St Brandon's would rise again.

Four and a half years later the end is in sight: the church next to Brancepeth Castle will be re-dedicated early next year. Restoration will have cost almost £3m.

"No one was interested in grieving," says Adrian Rogers, the appeal fund's full-time director. "It wasn't that they weren't upset, they just wanted to look at ways forward. The sense of anticipation is really mounting; you really have to take your hat off to them."

The insurance paid about £1.9m, and pretty promptly, too. The National Lottery Heritage Fund - goaded by an angry Duke of York who launched the appeal on the day the Fund refused the first application - finally offered £400,000.

Brancepeth villagers have added £110,000, mainly through five year standing orders.

Though the precise figure awaits decisions on internal furnishing, they now need less than £100,000. "If it wasn't for the masses of small donations, we'd be nowhere near," says Adrian. "I've been quite stunned where some of it has come from."

A former council leader in Suffolk, he left to become a hospice fund raiser in Hartlepool after working with the Salvation Army in East Anglia.

"I was getting more satisfaction from giving someone a cup of soup in a doorway at midnight than from pushing through council policies," he admits.

Brancepeth job almost complete, he leaves in September to train for a Salvation Army commission.

"I've absolutely fallen in love with this place," he says, an affection evident in his guided tours of the re-emerging church. Though he has an office in Brancepeth golf club, he eats his sandwiches in the still tended churchyard.

"It was just like a bomb site when I first came, like the bomb had fallen right in the middle of it. For the first year you could hardly see anything happening, but now there's something new every week."

For the first time, the "new" St Brandon's - within the restored walls - will have kitchen, toilets and running water. Rogers, a man who could see a silver lining in a cumulus convention, also welcomes the greater flexibility which the loss of the "Bishop Cosin" woodwork offers.

"The woodwork was unique and we certainly wouldn't have wanted to lose it, but we have to make the most of the opportunities presented to us."

Is spending almost £3m on a small village church a proper use of resources? Adrian has no doubts.

"It's very easy to throw things away; I think the history of this church makes it worth keeping.

"I don't think it's wrong to care in this way. It doesn't mean that other things are less important. The appeal has been a success."

* Donations can be sent to the Brancepeth Church Appeal, Appeal Office, Brancepeth, Durham DH7 8EA.

RETURNING a long forgotten favour, BBC director-general Greg Dyke opens the television studio at Darlington College of Technology on May 23.

"It's a hell of a coup for us," says Tony Metcalf, head of the School of Journalism, Media and Arts, though it leaves Metcalf with a rather sensitive difficulty concerning a usually hidden part of his anatomy and the window of a High Row department store.

Twenty years ago, when his salary was very much less than the £500,000 which now reputedly he draws, Dyke and friends spent a free holiday at college lecturer Jon Smith's cottage in Barningham, near Barnard Castle.

Homeward, they left behind some flowers, a bottle and a note saying that if ever there was anything they could do in return...

Jon, a former Northern Echo chief sub-editor who'd been on holiday elsewhere, remembered it when college colleagues were discussing "really big names" to open the studio.

"I kept in touch with one of the others but hadn't spoken to Greg Dyke from that day to this," he admits.

"If you get Greg Dyke, I'll bare my backside in Binns' window," said his gaffer. Promise honoured, the head admits a degree of foolhardiness. "I did say that and Jon has been dropping hints ever since. I'm hoping we can reach a compromise."

The 55-year-old DG, a York University graduate and ardent Manchester United fan, is expected to spend 90 minutes at the college after visiting Newcastle the previous day.

"It should be a great occasion. I'm very glad we didn't charge him for his lodgings," says Jon. Binns' window awaits.

OUR note a few weeks ago on the ceremonial arrival of the new Bishop of Durham has resulted in a little procedural sword fighting: the Church appears victorious.

Canon Tom Wright, the new Bishop, formally crosses Croft bridge - from Yorkshire into Durham - at noon on Friday, July 4. Half way over, he will be presented with the historic Conyers falchion, serpents for the slaying of.

But by whom? Both we and the town hall had supposed that the honour would fall to the Mayor of Darlington, as it did when Bishop Michael Turnbull arrived on the scene in 1994.

Brian Johnson, a churchwarden at Hurworth - the Diocese of Durham's most southerly parish - believed otherwise. Though the mayor did the job last time, it was only because the then Rector of Hurworth was unable to be there, he says.

"I took up cudgels," adds Johnson, though the choice of weapon seems rather inappropriate.

Among others who joined battle was 94-year-old Canon Leonard Piper, Hurworth's rector from 1939-73, awarded the MBE shortly before his 90th birthday and still going strongly.

"We were left in no doubt that it was an ecclesiastical rather than a civil ceremony," says the churchwarden.

As a result, the Rev John Dobson - Darlington's area dean, since Hurworth is between incumbents - will hand over the giant sword with a little speech about the "worm, dragon or fiery flying serpent" which many centuries ago "destroyed men woman and children."

Thus armed, the new Bishop will proceed safely to his Cathedral.

TWO other engagements already crowd the diary for Friday, July 4. It is expected to be both the first day of passenger running on the happily restored Wenseydale Railway from Leeming Bar to Leyburn and the start of Tow Law FC's annual beer festival. We have suggested to club chairman John Flynn that he lays on a rack of ales from small local brewers and call it Independents' Day. He's working on it, he says.