Faith

The story goes back to the 9th Century, when young Wystan inherited the Mercian throne.

He was too young, he thought, for the royal responsibilities and passed them instead to his mother.

Enter the villain of the piece: a Godfather who tried to marry the queen - and, when Wystan objected, murdered the boy, whose remains were interred at Repton along with his ancestors.

The crypt became a place of pilgrimage and many miracles were attributed to the bones of the murdered Mercian, until King Canute had the remains removed to Evesham Abbey.

When the Abbey's tower collapsed, strangely breaking Wystan's skull in two in the process, the monks at Repton pleaded for a return of the relics - and were awarded part of the skull and the forearm of the unfortunate saint.

Interior of the Saxon crypt at Repton

If you leave the crypt for the Churchyard, then you'll see that more memorable, if rather more recent, bones are buried there.

They include those of the pilots buried in the Commonwealth War Graves, and those of  the famous cricketer, scholar and author C.B. Fry who died in 1956.

Legend has it that in his heyday he liked to prove his athleticism by jumping up onto a mantlepiece ledge  from a standing start.

Should the bells ring while you're there, you'll be able to watch the ringers at work. The bell tower's ropes are 90 foot long so that the bells can be rung from ground level.

It makes the timing even more tricky than usual, and it's reckoned that if you can can ring the bells at St Wystan you can ring them anywhere!