The Childe of Hale.

Sculpture The Childe of Hale, John Middleton was one of my childhood fascinations. When I was a kid, my Dad and I used to walk from Speke through to Hale, from the housing estate through to the first village I ever experienced and we'd tell me the story of this tall gentleman, supposedly nine feet who lived in the area. I'd spin around on my Raleigh Grifter trying to imagine how tall that was. Now, thanks to the placing of a new statue in his honour, the BBC have unearthed his story:

"Sadly, no official record of John Middleton's true height exists to prove - or disprove - his gravestone's lofty claim.

The only estimate comes from a life-size impression of his right hand which Guinness World Records said indicated "a probable height of 7ft 9in (2.36m)" - somewhat shorter than the legend but impressive nonetheless.

A three-metre high bronze statue of the Childe of Hale has now been installed in the village to honour their outsized ancestor.

Nick Martin, from Halton Borough Council, accepted that John Middleton's height had "grown bigger through the years."

"He was supposed to have been exhumed and the bones measured in Victorian times, and that's when they roughly worked out his height at 9ft 3in," he added.

"So we have more or less settled on that."

The new bronze statue has been created by Diane Gorvin, after an original wooden piece by her husband, Philip Bews in 1996 began to rot away, both names I know from old because I researched their work in Birchwood and Warrington in the 90s when I was doing background research for this.