A walker has revealed a "mystery" secret that he found while on a walk with his girlfriend.
James Dillon took to Facebook to share his discovery in the middle of the woods near Lollie's Bridge in Lydiate.
He posted on a community Facebook page and said: "A secret grotto in a tree in Lydiate, by Lolly's Bridge. Lovely, no doubt but who stole baby Jesus?"
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When he was walking on Thursday, December 16 with his girlfriend Kate Fuller, 37, they stumbled across the mini nativity scene set up with toy dolls.
James told the ECHO : "Myself and my girlfriend, Kate, usually walk pretty regularly out that way, especially since covid, and we take different paths across Lydiate because there's so much farmland, a canal. Near Lollie's Bridge on Southport Road, between Southport and Lydiate, and there's a bridge.
"Down one side of the bridge there's a path and it's the only way you can get onto the canal from the road. It's a very muddy path actually at the moment with the weather and it's almost impossible to walk through, I actually slipped over on it as well. She was laughing her head off!
"As we came across it, my girlfriend likes the trees and she said 'isn't that tree amazing, it's all hollowed' and she was behind me so I turned round to look at her and as I turned around I noticed in the hollow tree, which has partially fallen, there was this bowl shape with a nativity scene.
"I just thought 'wow, that's incredible'. I don't know who has done it, I haven't got a clue. I even put it on the community page and no one piped up and said it was them. It's a bit of a mystery.
"Then there's a bit of a debate because the baby Jesus is missing and whether he should be there now or not until Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. People were then saying why would the wise men be there with the manger if Jesus wasn't there but that's where we're at.
"It's quite difficult to find though. It's one of those things you might just walk past. It's an odd place to find it.
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