Romanby's next to Northallerton, if not subsumed by North Yorkshire's county town - a subsummation, by most accounts, devoutly not to be wished - then at best just semi-detached from it. If Romanby weren't built in a day, it certainly seems to have spread itself of late.

The elder bairn was baptised at St James' church, Romanby, in the year that it marked its centenary. His mother recalls - as mothers do - that it was so cold he was obliged to wear his Arsenal hat, that the train carrying some of the guests forgot to stop at Northallerton and had to reverse into the platform and that at the subsequent head wetting we'd to go next door to borrow a cup of whisky.

"That's how cold it was," says mum.

In those days we lived in the last road in the village, thus enabling the same infant child, when still crawling, to feed £20 notes to the cow on the other side of the back garden hedge.

It is a financial recklessness, alas, which he has had difficulty in shaking off, though the last road - and the cows - are now half a mile closer to Thirsk. The bairn still wears an Arsenal hat, too.

Some suppose the village name simply to derive from a nearby Roman road, some from Saxon, others Viking. Some may imagine themselves townsfolk, others village people.

"I never tell people I'm from Northallerton, I always say I'm from Romanby," says Sue Adsett, St James' incoming churchwarden.

"If there's no room on the envelope, I don't even mention Northallerton at all," says Bill Newbould, another church council member.

In 1822, it's recorded, Romanby was a "small, pleasant village" with a population of 294. Sixty years later, when St James' church was dedicated, the numbers had edged up to 414, villagers said mainly to be farmers, cattle dealers, nurserymen and millers.

An earlier church had been demolished in 1523 on the orders of the Bishop of Durham, then the head lad thereabouts. No one knows what it had done to deserve it.

Now the population's 6,000 of whom 53 were at church last Sunday morning. Though the village green is intact and attractive, though the packhorse bridge a listed ancient monument, there are houses where houses might never have thought possible.

Expansion may also have been encouraged by a DL7 postcode, reckoned by outgoing North Yorkshire chief constable Della Cannings to be the safest in the county.

The railway station is in the civil parish of Romanby, County Hall itself in the civil parish of Romanby, St James' is a daughter church - officially a chapel-of-ease - of All Saints, Northallerton.

It was dedicated on May 30, 1882, the occasion meriting but five lines on the back page of The Northern Echo. The church had cost about £2,000, we said, and the Archbishop of York was "most eloquent".

Rather more space was given the same day to the re-opening after enlargement of St John's church, in Shildon. The services were said to be "interesting", the decorations "gay", the public lunch which followed "exceedingly well appointed".

Exactly 125 years later, the Bishop of Whitby will officially open a £250,000 new hall built onto the back of the church, most of the money having come from the sale of the previous hall - once the village school - across the road. They've managed to build six terraced houses on the site.

For the first time, too, they'll have a licence to conduct weddings, though none has yet proposed St James' as a venue.

Sunday's service is led by the Rev Don Tordoff, formerly Rector of Spennithorne, in Wensleydale, and one of six retired clergy living in the parish. Margaret, his wife, is another.

Also in the congregation is the Rev Ken Loraine, well remembered at Staindrop, St Cuthbert's, in Darlington, and at Preston-on-Tees.

Parts of the village, they admit, are becoming something of an enclave for the elderly - close to the buses, the shops and (let's face it) the hospital - which may explain why so few youngsters are present.

The previous week, though, they'd had 172 in for a baptism. "We couldn't really get them all in," says Peter Andrew. "It was lovely to see the place heaving, but maybe a bit dangerous if anything had happened." Perhaps people should be baptised more often.

We sing Oh for a Thousand Tongues to the "wrong" tune - it'll be all right at New Brancepeth Methodists tomorrow, four o'clock start - but Love Divine and Dear Lord and Father of Mankind inarguably to the right ones.

Mr Tordoff preaches about his time as a green young curate - "six foot above contradiction, as they say" - about the encouragement of the Holy Spirit and about the Book of Revelation, "that happy hunting ground for cranks and extremists".

Afterwards there are refreshments in the new hall. Peter Andrew says that people still think of Romanby as a village and of St James' as a rural church; Bill Newbould says they just want to be a friendly, family church.

Maureen Shepherd, 42 years in the parish, says that Romanby has changed completely. "Despite all that, everyone's still very friendly, still cares for one another, still looks after one another.

"Whatever you want to call it, that's really all you could ever want."

The Bishop of Whitby visits St James', Romanby, on Wednesday evening, May 30. The church and hall have open days, with refreshments, from 10am-4pm on Saturday, June 2 and 1-4pm on June 3.