A tall order faced a new Anglican bishop when he had to go all the way to Rome to find clothes which will fit him for his new office.

THE Venerable Stephen Conway, Archdeacon of Durham and at 6ft 6ins very high church indeed, has been appointed Anglican Bishop of Ramsbury. This week he has been in Rome, not seeking to cross the divide but because it is the only place in the world - the ecclesiastical equivalent of Long Tall Sally - where an exceptionally tall bishop may buy off-the-peg vestments.

"I wasn't allowed to purchase anything until the appointment became public," he reports by mobile telephone from a Franciscan monastery in the Italian capital. "My consecration is only a few weeks away and it's only in Rome that, among other things, I can buy a ready-made mitre. I'll be about nine feet tall in that."

Those subsequently inclined to enquire "Where in heaven's name is Ramsbury?" should know that three of its former bishops - Oda the Severe, Sigeric the Serious and plain old Aelfric - became Archbishop of Canterbury.

That was 1,000 years ago. "The tradition ends here," insists the new man, humbly.

The bishopric ceased in 1078 but was revived in 1974, a suffragan - assistant - to the Bishop of Salisbury, in Wiltshire.

Ramsbury itself has just 1,800 inhabitants, two village halls, a water cress growing industry and the church of the Holy Cross. It used to have a brewery, a building society and a pub called the Bleeding Horse, which sounds a bit like old man Steptoe's description of poor Hercules.

The diocese of Salisbury, however, embraces three-quarters of Wiltshire, nearly all of Dorset, bits of Hampshire and a single parish in Devon. There are 850,000 people spread over 2,046 square miles. "He's definitely going to need sat-nav in his new car," says a colleague - a big job for a very big man.

BORN in Brixton, the first of his family to go to university, Stephen gained degrees at both Oxford and Cambridge, became a Christian at Oxford and started working life at a public school in Scotland, teaching history and English.

Made to measure, he also coached basketball, and retains an interest in the sport.

His 20-year ministry has been entirely in the diocese of Durham, curacies in Gateshead, Sunderland and Durham, director of ordinands, vicar of Cockerton, Darlington and, in 1998, the Bishop of Durham's senior chaplain and communications officer.

"I can only honestly say that I have never for one minute regretted coming to the North-East and leaving it is a tremendous bereavement," he says.

"You can't find better people to be with than those in the North-East and it's only because of how they have supported me that I'm able to move on. I hope they will pray for me now."

He became Archdeacon of Durham four years ago, the At Your Service column from time to time crossing his path, or vice-versa, including at Bowburn where they thought him "absolutely wonderful" and at Blackhall where a parishioner knew that he was "the Venerable Summat" and the column irreligiously supposed that he'd probably been called worse.

At Ferryhill, a couple of years back, he compared life to a dance and recalled that an intended amorosa had once compared his own dancing to an elderly stork walking through mud. The new bishop is 48, and remains single.

"He's a lovely man, what you see is what you get," says another colleague. "Everyone was gutted when they heard he was going, but it wasn't a question of whether, it was when."

Stephen will be consecrated in St Paul's Cathedral on June 22, assuming his new role after the summer.

When in Rome he has also been enjoying the Spring sunshine and greeting old friends.

"Despite everything here," he says, "there really is no place like Durham." Quite right, Right Reverend, too.