The tiny community of Stanwick is determined to keep its beautiful - but now too large - church as a holy place.

THOUGH the great fire of York Minster was getting on 50 miles from the hamlet of Stanwick St John, they felt the heat there, an' all. Just like the flames, the premiums went through the roof. Previous policies allowed a badly damaged building to be left as a safe ruin. Fingers burned, the insurers moved to lessen the risks and increase the premiums.

For the historic church of St John the Baptist, halfway down a country cul-de-sac, it looked like the end of the road.

Unable to afford the insurance, the authorities instead declared the Grade I listed church pastorally redundant in 1990, vesting it - like around 335 others in England - in the Churches Conservancy Trust.

Now services are held only when there's a fifth Sunday in the month, "occasional services", they're called, and they like to make a bit of an occasion of it.

Stanwick is roughly between Darlington and Richmond, home 2,000 years ago to the Brigante queen Cartimandua, remembered for her willingness to make accommodation with the Romans. (A Brig deal, as it were.)

It's also the site of huge earthworks indicating settlements back to the Bronze Age, and in the early 1950s was the last major excavation undertaken by Sir Mortimer Wheeler, the eminent archaeologist. Among his finds was an iron sword, still in its wood and bronze scabbard, and a human skull, severed at the neck.

From 1865-1911, Stanwick Hall was home to the dowager Duchess of Northumberland, by every account a fairly fearsome soul but now at rest in the churchyard. On one occasion, so the story goes, a tenant farmer's sheepdog got in - the phrase is euphemistic - among her hound bitches.

Furious, the duchess ordered him to shoot his dog or leave his farm. The dog got it.

She was also not best pleased when, in the 1890s, the Methodists built a chapel at Aldbrough St John - a mile and a half to the east - and paid for an Anglican church in a successful attempt to make villagers conform.

Another story tells how someone was shot by a crossbow from the top of the handsome tower. Accident? "Not likely," they say.

Now the civil parish of Stanwick has just 80 inhabitants, though the parish council still meets in St John's vestry. "It's been suggested several times that we merge with Aldbrough but all they ever talk about is cutting the grass on the village green," someone says. "We've better things to do in Stanwick."

About 25 from Stanwick and Aldbrough are joined last Sunday by Brian Thubron, a former Stanwick resident who now lives in Boldon - between Sunderland and the Tyne - and is a director of Durham County Cricket Club.

"It's just such a lovely church, I always try to get back," says Brian, a bit miffed because Durham have lost to Lancashire the previous day but not half as fed up as a couple of years back when Boldon were denied a final day promotion.

One wicket needed, the ball passed between the stumps without dislodging the bails. Someone - crash, bang, wallop - even got a picture of the ball's unimpeded passage.

"It got in the Telegraph," said Brian, by way of vindication.

(It was also at Boldon, last season, that Mr Russell Muse's return after eight seasons out of the game was ended when he was caught by a one-legged wicket keeper off a 39-year-old mother-of-four, but that's a cricket story and it wouldn't do to become distracted.)

Though home to a veritable museum of medieval relics, both inside and built into the walls, the church was much restored in the 1860s by the architect Anthony Salvin, at the duchess's expense.

The Conservancy Trust isn't impressed. "Salvin was more distinguished for his new work than for his restoration," says a leaflet. "To modern eyes it seems rather harsh."

The churchyard, its roughly circular shape said to indicate pre-Conquest burials, is immaculately maintained and glorious with daffodils. Jim Coote, one of the churchwardens, has parked his bike around the back in case the Neighbourhood isn't Watching.

There are five robed choristers, but the first two hymns so unrelentingly obscure that we plead the Fifth Sunday Amendment, remaining silent in the hope of a swift amen. The third is God Moves In a Mysterious Way.

Stan Haworth, vicar of half a dozen churches thereabouts, preaches on witness. "If you were told in a court of law to say what you believe, what would you say?" he asks, and answers his own question by suggesting the Apostles' Creed.

There are prayers for Ken Good, the retiring and aptly named Archdeacon of Richmond. The 1990s copy of Crockford's Clerical Directory on these shelves suggests that the Church of England has 13 Good shepherds, two Saints and a couple of Angels as well.

There's a Virtue but no Vice, a Deveril but no devil, incarnate or otherwise.

John Gill, the other churchwarden, says afterwards that it wasn't difficult to make the redundancy decision, thus leaving the Conservancy Trust with a job on its hands.

"It would just have cost too much. In the long term we simply couldn't afford to keep it open," he says.

Jim Coote says it's a beautiful church in a fantastic setting. Stan Haworth says it's been a place of worship for 1,500 years, probably even before there was a church there.

"It's much bigger than the community now needs, but it's important to keep the continuity of our faith.

"Hopefully it will be a holy place for a very long time to come.

"On one level it would make sense to abandon a lot of these village churches, for us all to meet in Richmond and, instead of 20-30 at a service, have 200-300.

"Changing times may dictate that we will have to look at some of them, but it's really important that these ancient sites remain."

They'll all be back again on July the fifth - which is to say, of course, the 30th.