Lord's Cricket Ground's famous Father Time takes a battering from gales

'Home of Cricket' Lord's Cricket Ground's famous Father Time weather vane was subjected to a heavy beating by high winds, which left it battered on Monday.

The vane, situated above the Lord's Mound Stand clock, features a steel figure of an elderly man with a scythe on his back putting a bail on some stumps, and is synonymous with cricket in England.

However, Father Time encountered some unexpectedly fierce turbulence and was left flat on his back by gales in north London over the weekend, Sport24 reported.

Staff from the Marylebone Cricket Club, which owns Lord's, were full of concern after the discovery of the fallen Father Time.

But Father Time, who has stood at Lord's since being donated by architect Sir Herbert Baker in 1926, has previously fallen foul of bad weather more than once, having been struck by lightning in 1992 and, worse, knocked completely off his perch when hit by a barrage balloon during the Blitz in World War II, before spending the rest of the War in a cellar, the report added.