Quakers' meetings are very different from religious gatherings, but the Society of Friends prove that at Cotherstone silence is golden.

IF so peaceable a body may be said to do so, the Society of Friends is putting its head over the parapet. National Quaker Week begins today. You can even get the T-shirt.

We join them, as all are most welcome to do, in the charming little Meeting House in Cotherstone, Teesdale, built in 1797 outside the parish boundary because none would allow them within it.

Early records for the adjoining graveyard show also that an "unknown black boy" is interred there, apparently because the parish church declined to allow his burial.

"It was a status symbol at the time," says George Gledhill. "These days people have Ferraris, in 1800 they had little black boys."

The Meeting House is behind the village, down what Yorkshire folk call a ginnel - once in the North Riding, Cotherstone was in 1974 contentiously carried off by County Durham - and across a meadow.

In the 19th Century, it's further recorded, the landowner locked the gate to prevent the Friends' access. Lord Justice Fry - now there's a good Quaker name - happened to be staying at nearby Baldersdale Grange, ordered his footman to remove the gate from its hinges and drove his coach and pair right up to the door.

"Now," said the judge, "let them sue us."

Times change, though the Friends' ethos hasn't. Geoffrey Harrison, a Quaker, is chairman of the Barnard Castle and Startforth Council of Churches. Only the Roman Catholics decline membership of that one.

Janet Fowler is walking across the field, just ahead. A recently retired teacher, she moved from London to Barnard Castle in July and has never heard a single word spoken at a Cotherstone Quaker meeting.

It seems unlikely to change: it's one thing to stand up and be counted, another to stand up and be quoted. With the Quakers, in any case, it's the silence which can speak volumes.

There, too, is Mary Wilkinson, who's come over on her bike from Mickleton, five miles further up the dale. Once Church of England, she joined the Friends about 13 years ago.

"I got a bit cheesed off with always being told what I should believe in," she says. "There were some things I wasn't sure I believed in and eventually some things I didn't care if I believed in or not."

Besides, she had three small children. "An hour's silence was wonderful."

George Gledhill, Teesdale estate agent and surveyor, is also one of the seven present - plus columnist and wife - Quaker meetings the only religious gatherings which cheerfully she will attend.

George insists it's the only place in the dale where you can't hear a car, reckons he's committed to the Quakers but not particularly religious, says that he still has plans to open a pub and brewery at Amen Corner, opposite the parish church in Barnard Castle, and that he believes the 1960s pop group of that ilk to have taken their name from Barney.

The CofE objected to the pub plan; the Quakers didn't. "Quakers aren't what they used to be," says Janet, cheerfully.

The meeting begins at 10.30am, but is silent beforehand. They sit on benches with new cushions, foursquare around a little table on which, among other things, are placed a small vase of flowers and the New English Bible.

As Janet Fowler discovered, meetings can be wholly silent. There are no priests, no leaders, no liturgy, no hymns, no creedal belief, no firsts-among-equals - just equals.

Outside there are sounds of silence - a plane overhead, the wind in the trees. "You may be disturbed by the strangeness of the silence," says an introductory leaflet, "by distractions outside or by your own roving thoughts."

It's a bit of a pity that George Gledhill's mentioned Amen Corner because I'm trying to remember if it was they who sang If Paradise Was Half as Nice and, if they did, to decide if the song title were grammatical.

Watching others silently pondering, or reading, I'm also incorrigibly drawn to the line in Angels From the Realms of Glory about sages leaving their contemplation. "Brighter visions beam afar."

The leaflet is comforting. "Do not worry about this. We all find it difficult to settle at times."

After 20 minutes, however, someone rises to quote two paragraphs - numbers 41 and 42 - from Advices and Queries, the closest Quakerism comes to a doctrinal guide.

One's about respecting nature, the other about living simply and not being persuaded to buy what isn't needed and can't be afforded.

The lady of this house, Imelda Marcos of North-East journalism, has the good grace to shift a little but, wisely, adds nothing to the unspoken debate.

Twenty minutes after that, George Gledhill quotes from something called "Quaker Worship: a Risky Business".

Holy Bible, word divine

Bound in leather, one pound nine

Satan trembles when he sees

Bibles sold as cheap as these

There is gentle laughter. It may be the old eyes, but it seems that George looks across and essays a little grin.

The meeting ends after an hour when two elders, and then everyone else, shake hands.

Afterwards there's rather a lot of general correspondence - Mary concedes that the point about an ecologically conscious organisation using so much paper has been made before - followed by tea, biscuits and some easy, encouraging conversation.

Not quite new best Friends, maybe, but it's been a thoroughly interesting morning. Others really should see for themselves, or attend the open afternoon next Saturday: there, it's been said.