SESSIONS on the history of Darlington's churches are being held next week in the Crown Street library ahead of National Libraries Day next Saturday.

Colin Wilkinson will be on hand to chat about (and sign and sell) his new book, A History of Darlington Churches, and library staff will be putting up displays of framed pictures from the library collection.

The events run from 10am to 1pm on Wednesday and noon to 3pm on Friday. Here are a few facts about Darlington churches from Mr Wilkinson's book:

Roofers working on St Andrew's, Haughton, in the 18th Century scratched around their boots on the slate tiles and then added their initials: one says "BB 1786".

St Augustine's Church in Bondgate was designed in the 1820s by Ignatius Bonomi, who also designed the Stockton and Darlington Railway Bridge over the River Skerne, and extended in 1865 by Joseph Hansom, who designed the Hansom Cab

In 1937, the Rev Robert Jardine, vicar of St Paul's Church in North Road, found international fame by conducting the wedding of Edward, the newly abdicated king, and his divorced American heiress, Mrs Wallis Simpson, in France – even though the Church of England refused to sanction the marriage.

St Luke's Church, built in Corporation Road in 1917, says in Gothic writing in the stonework that it is the "Railway Pioneers Memorial Church".

St Herbert's was built in Eastbourne in 1939 and was the first church in County Durham to be dedicated to a saint who lived on an island in Derwentwater in the Lake District but travelled each year to see Cuthbert on Lindisfarne.

Since its closure in 1963, the Methodist church in Denmark Street has become a Spiritualist centre. Since its closure in 1978, the Methodist church in Louisa Street, off Yarm Road, has become a Sikh temple. The mosque in North Lodge Terrace was established in 1983 in what had been a Christian Scientists' church.

In 2011, 71 per cent of Darlington's population described itself as "Christian" – well above the England and Wales average of 59 per cent.