THE trouble with St John's church in Castleside is that it's simply too small. The joy of it is that congregations have doubled in little over two years, that they include abundant young faces and that folk are fulsome in their friendliness. A flower festival last weekend helped raise money for further growth, an urgently needed extension.

A church that's just not big enough should almost be front page news. There may not have been such religious enthusiasm thereabouts since John Wesley preached beneath a larch tree - as he seems to have done almost everywhere else - in 1772.

Castleside's on the A68 - the scenic route to Edinburgh they like to call it - a couple of miles from Consett. The transformation coincided with the arrival as priest-in-charge of the Rev Linda Potter, though she is anxious to give credit elsewhere.

A youth club and Sunday school have been started and flourish; the expansion will include meeting area, vestry, toilets and mother and baby facilities - together costing around £120,000. Even the parish magazine has had to change from bi-monthly to monthly because so much is going on, though the coffee morning advert - 1.30am until noon - may just be overdoing the enthusiasm.

"She just sort of mesmerises you with her eyes," says David Dixon, one of the churchwardens.

"It's true," says Bill Makepeace, his colleague. "The hardest thing in the world is to say No to Linda."

And the much praised Mrs Potter? "I've heard what they say about my eyes but if anything I suppose the expression is that I put myself about," she says.

"I don't drive, so I walk everywhere round the parish. No one can say they never see the 'vicar'."

She grew up in Harrogate ("not the posh end"), married a soldier, spent time in Hong Kong and in Germany, returned to Darlington, was confirmed in her 30s, ordained deacon in Durham Cathedral in 1994 at the same time as the first women became priests.

"I was one of those dancing outside," she says. "It's been a long journey, but I got there."

She'd been curate in Shildon, not the posh end, either, moved eyes open to Castleside with Norman, her husband, who is a lay reader - an unpaid, non-ordained minister.

"The people here are tremendous," says Linda. "What's happening is down to them."

Once it was a lead mining area, the Smelters Arms (and its integral fish and chip shop, the Sand Dancers) still at the village crossroads. For 30 years until 1857, the Healeyfield mine also produced 108,336 ounces of silver, someone must have been counting, mainly for the Durham mint.

Now it was the 133-year-old St John's which seemed bejewelled, the church most gloriously arrayed with 31 floral tableaux, chiefly depicting the saints. The representation of their patron being boiled in oil - as apparently was his fate - seemed for some reason particularly to be admired.

Many had helped, impossible to name them all and invidious to mention a few, but Kate Smith who had overall charge of the displays teaches both flower arranging and owns a driving school, too.

Teaching flower arranging was much easier than teaching driving, she said.

Almost 100 attended the 9 30 eucharist, including the couple who make the weekly 28 mile round trip from South Moor, Stanley, because they like St John's so much. Most comforted themselves with the thought that they were better than the weather, the chap next to us claimed jocularly that he'd grown all the flowers on his allotment.

"Eeeh," said his neighbour, "you're not supposed to tell lies in church."

There was nothing extreme about it, nothing so high as to bring on a queer turn or so low as to be depressing, just vibrant middle-of-the-road Anglicanism and no danger of being knocked down in the rush to leave.

We began with Morning Has Broken, the choir not simply a fancy dress parade - as sometimes is the case - but accomplished leaders of the music.

Linda's sermon claimed that there were surprisingly few biblical references to flowers, didn't consider the lilies of the field which toil not neither - unlike Mr Peter Mandelson, say - do they spin.

Still, Solomon in all his glory could hardly have been arrayed like St John's church.

They'd a marquee out the back in which to serve refreshments, to catch up with the news and to talk some more about Linda Potter and the fear that the bishop might move her elsewhere.

"A couple of years ago I was one of the youngest here, now I feel quite old," said David Dixon.

"We'd first talked of an extension since 1967, but it's taken Linda to make it happen," said Bill Makepeace.

The lady was being duly modest, but for now the eyes have it, most definitely.

l Principal Sunday service is at 9.30am, evening worship at 6pm on the last Sunday of the month. The Rev Linda Potter is on (01207) 590086