IN the black and white days when Tyne Tees Television closed down for the night and the epilogue helped put it gently to bed, the column was once (inexplicably) invited to record a five minute contribution.

For reasons connected to the 1970s' space race, transmission was delayed until 3.30am. An average viewing figure of 10,000 - of whom half were snoring in the armchair and the others walking the dog round the block without having first switched off the 17 inch set - had been reduced to approximately three before the God slot could finally be fitted in.

The insomniacs were the unlucky ones. It was pious nonsense, sanctimonious meandering about steep and rugged pathways. Since then, we've chosen the easy option.

Thus it was that when a new book called Northumbria Church Walks ambled agreeably into the office, we tackled the shortest with which to illustrate it.

The book meticulously details 30 walks around some of the region's most historic churches - Rothbury to Romaldkirk, Whorlton to West Woodburn - with a guide to the churches themselves and a foreword by the Tyneside singer Sting.

"Almost all the solutions to my problems have presented themselves on long solitary walks," he writes.

Whilst solitary enough, this one wasn't long - three miles on a God's in his Heaven sort of a Sunday morning around the lovely Saxon church at Escomb, a couple of miles west of Bishop Auckland, and back in time for 11 o'clock service.

Fr Michael Dent, the Vicar, was clearly supportive. "My idea of a good walk," he told his congregation, "is to go around Harrods without using the lift."

What, Harrods in Bishop?

It was a lovely stroll, occasionally steep but never rugged, though a couple of nettle-choked patches suggested both the wisdom of a foreword by Sting and the need for the once ubiquitous dock leaves.

We walked on the Wear side, over a few waymarked stiles and across the sad old Eastgate to Bishop Auckland railway line, carelessly identified by the authors as Eastgate to Barnard Castle.

In places the line is now weed-choked and overgrown. The day when the Weardale Railway rapturously reopens may be further off than we suppose. There was a lady throwing sticks for her dog, some fellers walking their greyhounds, bairns on bikes. None seemed to be heading towards the church.

The path led past the burgeoning village of Etherley Dene, which we knew when it had nowt, across to the Five Acres where lived the late Fred Hallimond - a regular Hear All Sides correspondent who grew his own tobacco and lived in great peace with his pipe - and along to California, which had stopped the authors in their tracks.

California's between Escomb and Witton Park. Lovers of two word headlines (or of the Mamas and Papas) would simply write California Dreaming and be done. The book makes a joke about sidewalks, a rare tilt at mirth.

Back at the old English Saxon church, they were grumbling about the council not having cut the churchyard - they'd seen nothing, we said - and offered a glass of water.

Something a little stronger was ultimately in mind, however.

Fr Michael - successor to the late Nick Beddow, the dear old Voracious Vicar - delivered a simple and highly effective sermon on prayer and also announced that Norman Inman, the organist, had suffered a suspected slight heart attack after declining the cliff lift at Scarborough in favour of the vertiginous steps instead.

Norman had also declined to go hospital, protesting that he had to look after the Vicar's dog. "You can imagine what the doctors said about the Vicar's dog," added Fr Michael.

A splendid service finished with Lord of the Dance; and of the walk to church, an' all.

* Northumbria Church Walks by Peter Donaghy and John Laidler is published by Sigma at £8.95. The Saxon church at Escomb can be visited at most reasonable times, with guided tours of many summer afternoons. Fr Michael Dent is on (01388) 602861.

Talking the walk... ten ecclesiastical oddities revealed in Northumbria Church Walks

William Knight, a 16th Century Vicar of Romaldkirk in Teesdale, simultaneously held seven livings, three archdeaconries, three canonries and a prebendary.

As well as famously dining at the County in Aycliffe Village, Tony Blair and French prime minister Pierre Jospin discussed the Norman architecture of St Mary's church, Trimdon Village, during M. Jospin's 1998 visit to the North-East.

The sanctuary knocker on the great door of Durham Cathedral was last used for that purpose in 1650.

* John and Josephine Bowes, founders of the magnificent Bowes Museum in Barnard Castle, hoped to be buried in the grounds of a chapel next to the museum. When the chapel plan was deemed too expensive, they were interred at Gibside Chapel in North Durham - their bodies reburied next to St Mary's RC church in Barnard Castle when it opened in 1928.

The Rev J B Dykes, Rector of St Oswald's Durham from 1862 until his death in 1876, composed numerous hymn tunes. Among the best known is the tune of "Holy, holy, holy."

Many of the finest furnishings in St Edmund's church, Edmundbyers, were acquired for £3.

The "fortress-like" church of St Andrew, Roker, is known as "the Cathedral of the Arts and Crafts movement."

The graveyard St Cuthbert's, Bellingham, contains the "Long pack" tombstone - said to commemorate an attempted robbery when the villain, hidden inside a pedlar's pack, was shot when he moved. Four others suffered the same fate when a whistle found inside the pack was blown.

Thomas Bewick, the celebrated painter and engraver, is said to have practised his art as a child by drawing on the gravestones at St Mary's, Hexham.

St Mary Magdalene's in Whalton, near Morpeth, has a montage image of the face of Christ made from 3,000 photographs taken in the village to mark the turning of the millennium.