REGULARS at a popular inner city pub have been supping a winter ale to help raise funds to restore a historic church.

At the weekend, Jacob's ale and cider house unveiled a special brew, inspired and created by a group of its locals, and sold it in aid of renovating St Chad's Church in Toller Lane, Bradford.

Jacob's landlady Christina Wagstaff invited 20 of the pub's regulars to spend the day with her at Oates Brewery in Halifax back in November with the aim of coming up with their own winter ale.

The Winter Solstice ale was carefully stored in three whisky barrels ready for the run-up to Christmas and on Sunday they were cracked open for the first tasting.

The major church renovation scheme, which has already cost £160,000, is being watched over by Bradford’s most devoted priest Canon Ralph Crowe, who is now in his 80s and is the longest-serving incumbent priest in the Bradford diocese.

With the help of grants from English Heritage, Yorkshire Historic Churches Trust and the diocese, money has been spent on roofing, re-pointing, guttering and drainage improvements back in 2012, but there was still more work left to be done.

St Chad's has only recently had its centenary celebrations. Early congregations met in a house in nearby Whetley Lane in 1904 and moved to a school room in Toller Lane and a temporary iron building before the present church was consecrated in 1913.

The next big project is to beautify the inside, said Canon Crowe.

"We have been taking a year off for recovery after all that work but our next big project will be to beautify the inside and to restore the mosaics in the Great Apse and in the altar and Lady Chapel. We kept the restoration fund open for that purpose."

Congregation member Mary Spate has also been doing her bit to give funds a boost by making and selling her own cards.

Her venture has so far made £3,000 which has paid for a new lighting system in the nave.

Canon Crowe said: "I am so proud of our people for all they do and for not just focusing all their help on just us, their efforts have stretched far further afield too to helping hospitals in Gaza and Martin House Hospice for children in Boston Spa."

Despite its 100 years, St Chad's is believed to have the oldest stained glass in the diocese. Stained glass experts have all agreed fragments that form part of five windows in the Lady Chapel date back more than 800 years.

The glass is believed to have been excavated from St Augustine’s Abbey ruins in Canterbury in 1913, probably by Walter McCready, who later became St Chad’s first curate in 1910.