THE tiny Methodist chapel stands alone by the rugged road through Upper Teesdale, improbable in the daylight but emblazoned on Sunday evenings. It's as the familiar old Sunday School sonnet would have had it: like a little candle, burning in the night.

"I've always wanted to come here," I tell Eddie Bell, one of the chapel stewards.

"We've always wanted you to," says the engaging Eddie. "I'll tell you all I know and you'll still know nowt."

Officially it's Forest-in-Teesdale, the wind-blown area between High Force and the Cumbrian border, the whitewashed hamlet of Langdon Beck a mile to the west of the chapel.

Once it was worked, worked to death, by the London Lead Mining Company. More recently there were 28 farms between Langdon Beck and the county boundary. Now there are five.

The chapel, originally Wesleyan, has stood - withstood - since 1867. Until 1987 there was a Primitive Methodist chapel, known as the Ebenezer, across the road and at one time a Baptist chapel a few hundred yards further down.

Though the two factions of Methodism officially united in 1932, it's reckoned another five years before word finally got through to Forest-in-Teesdale.

The Anglican church, humbly dedicated to St James the Less, still holds monthly services nearby and is locally renowned for its Christmas Eve carolling. The 39-line telephone exchange, one of the last in Britain to be automated, closed in 1967 after answering for 32 years to spinster sisters Dorothy and Allie Redfearn.

Both were local preachers at the Ebenezer, though by the nature of their calling - or, strictly, other people's calling - could never attend church together.

Automation was very well, but it couldn't put you through to Sam the grocer, or provide just a short ring because the baby might be asleep.

That the chapel is still going is remarkable, that it's by no means just going through the motions, more extraordinary yet. "It gets much harder every year," says Eddie. "There's just not the population any more, but we're determined to keep going as long as we can."

It's the last 6.30pm service before the winter; from tomorrow, the weekly gathering will be at 2.30pm. "It's a long enough winter up here," someone mutters, "without starting it in October."

Usually around eight or nine gather together. Tonight there are 14, plus an itinerant journalist. Unusually, there's also to be coffee and home baking in the little schoolroom at the back where something called the Shield of Chivalry still hangs.

"You're our guest," says Mary Bell, Eddie's wife. "We can't be sending you home hungry."

Eddie was born a bit further up, in Harwood - "I'm not going to tell you how many years ago" - moved down to Cronkley Farm at Langdon in 1943 and eight years ago retired to Middleton-in-Teesdale, where things can be positively tropical by comparison. They've never forsaken the chapel.

Clarey Beadle, a Methodist local preacher since 1947 and possessor of a Teesdale accent as broad and as mysterious as the Cauldron Snout waterfall, still lives at Whey Syke, a mile or so above the chapel, and has no plans to decant down dale.

"Aa's content where aa is," he says, and gives every good impression of it. Once, previously, he'd spoken to someone from the Echo, told him that the secret of his long life was doing without beer, baccy and fresh women, and was a bit surprised to find himself quoted on it.

Asked now how he's survived 83 wet and wild winters in upper Teesdale he recalls advice given long ago. "Someone told me all you needed to get by was a good wife and a good muffler. I was lucky, I had both."

Once an Ebenezer man - "Almost everyone here was" - he still studies the Bible, especially the Old Testament and especially in winter. "There's some terrible things in the Bible, you know," says Clarey. "They're even eating each other in the Old Testament."

The chapel, clearly and conscientiously cared for, has five tiers of pews, two wall heaters and a fire by the organ, for fear of frozen fingers. On one wall there's a tapestry of local landmarks, on another a large clock. Even the ticking clock seems timeless.

If not exactly the Ancient Order of Foresters, the congregation is mainly getting on a bit. Reuben Bayles, legendary local councillor and 53 years a Methodist preacher, is, sadly, in hospital in Darlington.

The service is led by Hazel Hawkins, a full-time lay worker who's been five years in Middleton-in-Teesdale, retires next June and will be married the following month. "I love it up here, the folk have been really wonderful to me," she says.

The service's theme is forgiveness, Hazel's compelling address - "I don't preach, I talk" - recalls some extraordinary gestures of forgiveness from the German concentration camps and from South Africa at the time of Apartheid.

"I forgive him," said the widow of a black man burned alive by white 'security guards', "because I know that Jesus freely forgave me."

From a Methodist Hymn Book rubber stamped April 1, 1948 and imprinted that it is for use of visitors, we sing Sing We A King and Rock of Ages - "How many times down the generations has that been sung here," says Hazel - and the great and glorious hymn And Can It Be.

If a congregation of 14 (and one discordant other) has ever before sang And Can It Be so enthusiastically, so energetically and so effectively, the sound must have been quite amazing.

It's lovely and they're lovely; a warm and welcoming night. Something's still stirring up at Forest.

* Forest-in-Teesdale Methodist chapel holds a concert by the Coverdale Singers, with gift tree and "public supper" at 7.30pm on Saturday, December 16. The following day there's a carol service at 2.30pm to which all, of course, are most welcome. The Christmas Eve service at St James the Less, with Middleton and Teesdale silver band in attendance, is at 8pm.