Church installs ice rink to celebrate Christmas

A vicar who installed an ice rink in his church for Christmas took a tumble when he tried it out for the first time. 

Father Stuart Craddock of the 14th century St Wulfram's church, Grantham, put an ice rink in the nave as part of the church's first Christmas tree festival and promptly fell over when demonstrating for the BBC. 

The vicar tries out the ice rinkBBC

Despite wearing a long black clerical cassock, he gamely donned the skates to demonstrate the rink for Radio Lincolnshire, when he was captured on film.

BBC Radio Lincolnshire

"No-one expects an ice rink inside a church," he said. "So let's do something unexpected. Be something different and challenge people's conceptions about who we are and what we are doing. We're not at Christmas of course, it doesn't start until 25 December, but life is so full and bonkers for people so let's start it now or at least give people a glimpse of the joy of Christmas."

The video records the camera man laughing as the vicar hits the floor. Father Craddock sportlingly responds, in a reference to the popular television video mishaps show You've Been Framed: "So that's £250 for that, I get."