THERE may have been a population explosion in Stalling Busk. At 2.30pm last Sunday it's put at 12; two hours later the estimate has risen to 17. It will in either case be appreciated that Stalling Busk - pronounced as in dolling, or possibly lolling, but known to locals simply as Busk - is barely a microdot on the map.

Look at Wensleydale, turn southwards just before Bainbridge - where runs England's shortest river - keep right on to the end of the road and in three miles, perhaps breathless at the extraordinary beauty of it all, you reach the Busk stop.

The glorious little church of St Matthew, compared in appearance to a Swiss chalet, is where Lesley Coates Jones's son was married.

"People came from several countries for the service and said that Stalling Busk must be the beautiful place in the world," says Lesley, the Church Council secretary.

"I don't know about that, but it's not bad, is it?"

"All it needs is a pub," says the photographer, though once the village had two pubs plus a school - the school room survives - and a tiny, take it or leave it sort of a shop.

"It was bigger than Hawes once upon a time," someone says. Mind, she adds, Hawes was only little.

Now no more than five or six, up to half the population nonetheless, attend the monthly service in the 93-year-old church, though the building is manifestly cherished.

"We don't believe in keeping churches open for the sake of it," says Lesley. "This is a witness to our Christianity., hikers love calling in here."

Once a year they also hold an altogether better attended service by the shore of sparkling Semerwater, between the main Wensleydale road and the village.

Clergy have often arrived by boat; Malcolm Stonestreet, a well remembered 1970s Vicar of nearby Askrigg, was winched down from a helicopter. Whether or not he subsequently walked on the water is unrecorded, but the sumptuous Stonestreet doubtless heard the jokes.

We arrive early, essay a 30 second circumnavigation of Stalling Busk, head 600 yards down a steep and rugged pathway to the ruins of the early 18th century church a quarter of a mile away.

In Victorian times, it's said, the congregation got into bother with the bishop for using the wrong order of service and singing "unseemly" songs - Busking, as it were - though the nature of the unseemliness is sadly unrecorded.

The graveyard, still used, holds 750 souls from the Raydaleside hamlets of Busk, Marsett and Countersett. The Co-op, or some other undertaking, still leads corteges down there.

"They just hump the coffin on their shoulders and go," says Lesley, as if surprised at being asked how they manage.

By the old church we also bump into the column's genial GP, fair hiking with two companions and wearing the sort of hat that a medical missionary might have worn in the Congo.

"Everyone compares us to The Last of the Summer Wine. I'm Foggy, the bossy one," he says.

St Matthew's is still further enhanced by a flower festival on the theme of "Dreams", quotations from Yeats and Keats (who shouldn't always rhyme), from Kipling who pondered about not making dreams your master and from Shakespeare who supposed that we are such stuff as dreams are made on.

Beside the lake, where a notice from the Semerwater Sports Association ordains what may and may not be done thereabouts, around 100 are gathered for the 3pm service. It's led by Ann Chapman, Vicar of Askrigg since November, and admirably accompanied by Hawes Silver Band. Ann was previously a team minister in an impoverished area of Sheffield, compared it to Beirut, decided that she needed something different.

In all her wildest she could never have imagined so wondrous a contrast.

She is dressed as if having returned from a shout with the Semerwater lifeboat, speaks from the jetty so that she might be better heard. The theme is also to be dreams, she says; the theme tune is I Have a Dream by Abba, the bible reading of old men who dream dreams and young men who have visions.

The vicar sways with the music, second prize in an Abba lookalike competition.

There are also hymns, joyously brass banded about, like O Worship the King and Those in Peril on the Sea. Just as real ale enthusiasts talk of quaffing beer, so there are singing hymns and these - the better for it - are among them.

A couple of fisherman cast sideways glances, shrug their shoulders and sling their hook. The fish, thank you for the music, have skidaddled.

"If you take nothing else from this service," says Ann, "take that you can have dreams and see good in everything."

Back at the Swiss chalet church there are £1.50 teas, happy conversation, smiling faces. It's been a truly magnificent occasion: a dream ticket, undoubtedly.

O, for the right tune

ON the day of the Wimbledon men's singles semi-finals in July last year we attended a splendid open-air songs of praise in Witton Park, were introduced to a dog called Ernest - "the size of a suburban sideboard" - and grumbled that they used the wrong tune to O For a Thousand Tongues to Sing.

"Not only was it the wrong tune," the column querulously continued, "but was so uninspiring by comparison that it could have been written in three and a half minutes on the inside flap of a Woodbine packet."

The service was at Witton Keep, Bob Wolff's place between Witton Park and Witton Castle, and aimed at raising funds and interest for a new Methodist church in the former Category D village.

Tomorrow from 2pm Bob and his family host another songs of praise - £3.50 admission (children and students £2) to include a hot meat sandwich and a drink. Details from Kelly on 01388 767744.

Ernest's now even bigger than a sideboard, they've a new Doberman who answers (disconcertingly) to Wilf Wolff and they'll definitely, says Bob, have the right tune to O For a Thousand Tongues.

Celebrating sisters

Another splendid Methodist occasion, a handicrafts exhibition called "Susanna's Sisters" - featuring the work of Methodist women - takes place at the glorious old chapel at Newbiggin-in-Teesdale on Saturday, September 7 (10am-6pm) and the following day from 10am-4pm.

Mrs Margaret Wearmouth from Hamsterley is preacher at the Sunday 6pm service. The Deerbolt Ladies Choir sing on Monday September 9 at 7pm.