Built by faith

HOWEVER stultifying the sermon, how sultry the day or how agreeable the lunch, there was never much chance, they say, of falling asleep during services at Coxhoe Methodist church. They must, it's agreed, have been the most uncomfortable pews in Christendom.

"I'd bring two cushions," says Margaret Welsh, the treasurer, "and still I couldn't get myself right."

Now everything's changed. A brave new church, with upholstered chairs and pew regrets, was dedicated last Saturday.

Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin...

Coxhoe, locally pronounced to rhyme with boxer but perhaps with no other word in the language, is a long village four or five miles south-east of Durham City.

Its hoary-handed heyday may have been in mid-Victorian times when, a few years either side of 1870, the Primitive and Wesleyan Methodist chapels, the Coop and the Anglican church all opened their doors.

Though Methodism formally united in 1932, it would be another 32 years - and that by no means a reluctance record - before the union was fully consummated in Coxhoe.

They joined at the 1872 Wesleyan premises, changed the name from St John's to St Andrew's, the Prim and proper becoming a furniture and carpet shop further down the front street.

By the 1990s, however, the chapel was crumbling. "We needed new floors, new roof, new heating, the gable end was in danger of collapsing, there were other health and safety things and apart from anything else it was too big," says Elsie Crathorne, with the air of someone who could continue with little prompting.

They sought estimates. It would be more expensive to put right than to build a new one on the same site, though it may not have been a knock-down price, nonetheless. The building costs almost trebled, and then there was the small matter of head office.

For head office, read Methodist property division. Told that work was about to start on the new church, the hot property man discovered that they'd never actually given permission to demolish the old one.

"The gentleman was quite cross with me, started shouting," recalls Margaret Welsh. "I blamed the superintendent minister, that's what superintendent ministers are for."

In the end, she adds, she and the man from the top floor of the property department got along famously - "first name terms, everything".

He even sent a very nice cheque, though with a stricture that they mustn't do it again. "I don't think it's likely,"

says Jack Gilmore, one of the chapel stewards, "not in my lifetime, anyway."

The building fund had begun on October 24, 1994 when a lady found £10 in the street nearby, sought vainly to establish its ownership and handed it over to the treasurer. Margaret now carries a stick.

"It's to get more money out of people with," she says.

Efforts ranged from small change collections ("amazing how it adds up") to a buy-a-brick scheme to a local history exhibition which, says Jack Gilmore, endeared them to the city council. If not exactly tied behind their backs, one hand was cramped, however, by some Methodists' continuing unease with bingo book and raffle ticket.

Jack was one of the leaders. "There were plenty of people said it could never be done, but the five of us on the fundraising committee never doubted it for a minute," he says. "It's all about faith in the future."

The photographer asks his official position.

"He's a Jack Gilmore," says Jenny Pryde, the new minister. "Every church should have one."

The old building, said in a church history to have had ornamental walls and ceilings that were a shining example of the Victorian craftsman's art, was demolished in 2003. The striking new one is highlighted by a cross of glass bricks.

In the vestibule there's a tapestry, worked on for two years by Elsie Crathorne and Marjorie Talbot, her sister, depicting Coxhoe's Methodist churches and the names of all who've contributed to the new one.

"It's a wonderful day for us," says Marjorie.

"At last we have a church roof which doesn't leak."

In the 14 years of the At Your Service column I'd never been to a church opening, though maybe a dozen that were closing. In a decade as chairman of the Darlington Methodist district, the Reverend Graham Carter had taken part in just one opening, the joint Anglican/Methodist church at Sacriston, on the other side of Durham.

Graham's carrying a distinctly episcopal, decidedly Anglican, crozier, which he calls a crook. Mitre? Might not, he insists.

The church is almost full, including a veritable cabinet of ministers. Jenny Pryde, a Scot and former teacher, is in her first appointment. "I just feel so jammy,"

she says.

The dedication prayer asks that in the new church the seeker may find truth, the weak find courage and the grieving comfort. The chairman's address insists that, however amply cushioned, they must never rest on their laurels. It is to be a naught-for-their-comfort zone, nonetheless.

"What's it all for, now that you have achieved it?" he asks. "You can't sit back and relax now. You have a new polished tool for a purpose."

When the old church closed and they'd to get not entirely unwillingly off their backsides to meet in the church hall next door, they'd sung at the last the familiar hymn about travelling from the old to the new.

Last Saturday we sing it again. "One more step along the world I go...." Mind, it hadn't half been a big 'un.

■ Coxhoe Methodist church has an open day, with free refreshments, from 9.30am today.