World, meet Dad.

This is St Chad's church in Lichfield.

It's been here since 669AD when St Chad himself founded a chapel on the site.

It's survived a fair bit of battering over the years - in particular, being used as a Parlimentarian amunitions store in the Civil war in 1643, and therefore for target practice by the Royalists...

The tower (pictured) was built around about 1300AD, and the statue on the left of the window is Paul.

Not a biblical character, but my actual Dad...!

I grew up in Lichfield till i was 18, and as a family we've been heavily involved in the church over the years. My dad in particular has been instrumental in organising fundraising and lottery funding for badly needed structural repairs and a new boiler.

His reward was to be enshrined in stone for the next few hundred years on the West face of the Church he's worked so hard to maintain.

Proud of you dad!

(Just don't call it a Gargoyle....)