The little school of Scargill

How wrong: how wondrously, blessedly wrong.

Scargill is also a tiny, tranquil Teesdale hamlet on the North Yorkshire/Durham border, presently - perhaps discontentedly - annexed to the latter. There were habitations 4,000 years ago, it was mentioned in the Domesday Book, Sir Walter Scott strolled in Scargill woods and in 1936, Roman shrines were found on Scargill Moor. Things have changed, of course, but time doesn't march in Scargill, it saunters.

The single room school that in 1874 was built for £208 8s 7d not only still stands by the peaceful River Greta but still has the original desks, now used for domino drives and entirely adequate for that purpose save that the dominoes, on being shuffled, tend to fall down the ink well holes.

Though the school closed in 1950, the building remains Scargill's church and sole public place. It's there on a bright and buoyant Easter Sunday afternoon that around a dozen of us gather for Holy Communion.

Numbers include the Rev Christopher Cowper - "We're on Scargill time, " he explains, "it's even later than Barningham time" - and Val Jones, the organist, who travels from Darlington after discovering Scargill at a previous incumbent's Magic Circle evening.

"She's here in faith today, " says Mr Cowper. "Usually she brings her accordion in case the mice have been at the organ again."

The service, entirely appropriately, is from the 1662 Book of Common Prayer.

The hymn book is more modern. Thine Be the Glory, not just for Easter, has absurdly been translated to Yours Be the Glory - out of time, if not out of tune.

The occasion is entirely glorious, nonetheless.

THE scattered group of farms now embraced by Scargill is south of the A66, west of the larger village of Barningham and north of the great Stang Forest. The castle was originally 12th century, Edward II said to have had his feet under the table, the lands given to Warenne de Scargill by William the Conqueror.

Bobby Barker, 78, was king of the castle until moving out two weeks ago. "You get to an age, " he says, cheerfully. He'd lived there since he was two, film crews once arriving to film for All Creatures.

"It's all right is Scargill, " adds Bobby.

In the 19th century there were lead mines, too, so vigorously worked that the population peaked at 99, with a couple of dozen more in the neighbouring parish of Hope.

Hope is also said to have had two pubs.

Whether there was a band is, sadly, not recorded.

A bit as Private Frazer might, the splendid Bobby Barker tells the story of the miners coming to work from Marske, in Swaledale, whose horse and cart were swallowed up by the murky, mucky moor.

Doomed? "Never to be seen again, " says Bobby.

The first school was built in 1850, the rebuilding partly funded by Sir Talbot Clifford-Constable, who'd erected Scargill Lodge as a shooting box and sent his retainers' children there.

Among the early difficulties, it is recorded, was that the low ceiling prevented the teacher from establishing a proper trajectory when thrashing the poor unfortunates in his charge.

He'd successfully requested more elbow room - a swish list, as it were.

In 1921, a request to hold whist drives there was vetoed by Barningham's rector. "Such entertainment attracted large numbers of people from considerable distances, " it is recorded. "He suggested they apply to use the garage or coach house instead."

Miss Booker, the teacher until 1930, had her employment terminated after being persistently late for school - it's there in the governors' minutes - and was promptly replaced by Miss Winifred Huck, who wrote a village history and also appeared to believe in the maxim that if you can't enjoin them, beat them.

"Whenever she got a delivery of books there was always a cane came with it, " recalls Bobby. "New books, new stick. It was all part and parcel."

Brian Law, 69, remembers that they were always getting whacked for something - girls as well - if not with the cane then with the teacher's ruler. "If you held your arm out too high she'd whack it from the bottom instead."

Underhand, or what?

There was no kitchen, no running water - they used the beck - no electricity, basic sanitation. When the school closed in 1950, they were sent down to Bowes. "It was just totally different, " says Arnold Kipling, 66. "I think we thought that all schools were like Scargill."

The Church of England still used it on Sunday afternoons, the Methodists - who'd been in Scargill since 1791 - in the evening. Now the Anglicans alone meet there, on high days and holy days.

Electricity had arrived in 1961, the £110 cost met partly by the sale of animals, the official switch-on marked by a sacred concert and by 30 column inches in the Teesdale Mercury.

Sunday's service is Mr Cowper's fourth of the day, earlier hailing the resurrection at Hutton Magna, Wycliffe and Barningham. The service at his fifth church, the little chapel at Brignall alongside the A66, had been taken by Dr David Jenkins, the former Bishop of Durham. Ex cathedra, as they say.

We sing The Strife is O'er, Mr Cowper speaks on Mary Magdalene - as had the preacher at home that morning - none hurries homeward from that blissful Easter garden. The next service is on Whit Sunday, June 4, 2.15pm. If the spirit moves, it's worth finding.