St Peter & St Paul's Church

You might feel like you know your town pretty well. Especially if you've lived there all your life as I have with Syston. But your knowledge is really put to the test when you're submerged in its history. Today me and my Dad set out for an open day at our local church and got side tracked by a display in the Methodist Church. There we spent a good half hour looking at old photos and road plans and land auction bills from our town. Sadly, our house hasn't even reached the age of 25 and so was nowhere to be seen among the hoard of black and white photos. But it was great figuring out what buildings were still there and thinking about what they have become. Then we tested our knowledge even further when we popped round the corner to St Peter & St Paul's Church. A few more old photos greeted us but the only reason I went was to climb the church tower. We had done the same in 2007, I still have the certificate pinned to my cork-board, and I was excited to do it a second time. As the time before, we stopped off in the bell ringing room and, further up, we peeked through a door to see the bells spinning round and ringing. After crawling through a small hatch we were on the top of the church tower. From there we looked for our house, Dad's allotment, I looked at the changes to my primary school and we basked in the sunshine that had managed to creep out for us. We looked out to Bradgate park, the churches of surrounding villages and had a very clear view of the new Doctors Surgery which hadn't been built when we last conquered the spiral staircase.Of course if you're not local to Syston or Leicester this will all mean considerably little. But there really is nothing like viewing your town from above and if you get a chance to do so then you should take it. Even if it means staggering away from a spiral staircase feeling incredibly dizzy.