A-Z IN the back pocket, weather eye on the scurrying clouds above, it's an exact 30 minute walk - on these poor old legs, anyway - from Newton Aycliffe town centre to St Francis's church on the new town's western frontier.

Immediately upon arrival, the sound of a boisterous baritone can be heard from behind a hedge, embodied immediately afterwards by the friendly form of the Rev Bill Broad, Team Rector of the parish of Great Aycliffe.

He is singing the Flanders and Swann words to Mozart's Horn Concerto, the opening of which bears repetition - particularly for those who can remember the tune.

I once had a whim and I had to obey it,

To buy a French horn in a second-hand shop,

I polished it up and I started to play it

In spite of the neighbours who begged me stop....

Has it been brought on, we suggest, because St Francis's is in Horndale?

"It's because I'm mad," says the abundantly sane Mr Broad, a former prison chaplain at Wormwood Scrubs with the look of an ecclesiastical Alastair Sim about him.

It was last Friday evening, the Bishop of Durham there to celebrate St Francis's Day and also to re-licence the Team Rector to his demanding post. Two days later he was also to be installed as an honorary canon of Durham Cathedral and will henceforth be referred to as Canon Broad - as in Broad church, of course.

The parish has four churches - the historic St Andrew's in Aycliffe Village, St Clare's in the new town centre, St Elizabeth's in Woodham and St Francis's, the patron of birds and animals and, latter day, of ecologists, too.

St Clare of Assisi, incidentally, is now patron saint of television. Clearly she has her work cut out.

Opened in 1970, St Francis's isn't a conventional church building, but makes dual use of the school of the same name. The clergy admit that there are continuing problems - not everyone wants to go back to school.

Since it opened, there've been just two weddings and a funeral, says Canon Broad. They've tried everything they can think of to get more people to come, adds the Rev Mark Allsopp, Team Vicar with immediate responsibility for the church.

"I once heard of someone vainly asking for directions to the vicarage, which was 50 yards away," says Mr Allsopp. "Half the people on this side of Newton Aycliffe don't know we're here."

Its chief advantage is cost saving, its disadvantages that it doesn't fit the traditional "church" image and that it's pretty hard to find, hence the omniscient A-Z.

"Its geography is unfortunate," says Canon Broad. "If we were on the main road where Horndale workmen's club is, I think we'd be much more successful.

"People are put off by its physical limitations - the feeling is that if you're going to get into your car, you might as well go somewhere else - but not everyone wants a big town centre church or to freeze in St Andrew's.

"St Francis's is a holy and peaceful place to worship with a small but very faithful congregation."

Had Newton Aycliffe expanded as originally intended, the church would be in the middle of a large urban area. Now it's out on a limb, if not necessarily (per Flanders and Swann) a whim.

Though bits of gym equipment still line the walls of what properly is the nave, the chancel is particularly attractive. A mission statement (every church should have one) talks of serving the whole community and of a haven of peace and harmony in a troubled world.

Another notice on the door asks for silence before the service. It is blessedly, ever more unusually, observed.

Equally unusually there is incense, reserved (says Mark Allsopp) for special occasions and a well-drilled team of robed servers. Though a banner at the back portrays the familiar image of St Francis of Assisi with the birds of the air all around him, the Rt Rev Michael Turnbull warns in his address against "sentimentalising" their saint. "We can acclaim the radical challenge he gives us," says the Bishop.

Francis, a man of austere ways and prayerful means, was a back to basics sort of saint.

About 50 are present, some from other churches in the parishes, the 143 children of St Francis's junior school excused because there'd been a patronal service that morning. There's a lively piano accompaniment, something called an "Israeli Mass" setting, a hugely warm welcome.

Whilst the adults take refreshment afterwards, a little girl picks out When the Saints Go Marching In on the piano. A Horndale concerto at the end.

l St Francis's Church is at the end of Scholars Path, near Greenfield Road, Newton Aycliffe - square 5B, page 106, in the back pocket A-Z. The Rev Mark Allsopp is on (01325) 321533 and the Sunday service is at 9.15am.