The Archbishop of York - who grew up in Leigh - took pride of place at the coronation of King Charles III in Westminster Abbey ... revealing his wife ordered him to buy new shoes for the historic day.

The Most Rev Stephen Cottrell, also a former Bishop of Chelmsford, assisted the Archbishop of Canterbury in crowning and anointing King Charles III and Queen Camilla on Saturday.

The former Belfairs High School pupil read a sermon during the service but beforehand joked how his wife had ordered him to buy new shoes for the special occasion.

The archbishop always dons a pair of smart Dr Martens but has previously stated he only usually buys a new pair every five years before his wife convinced him the occasion was deserving of a new pair.

Speaking to ITV, he said: “My wife told me ‘you can’t possibly wear those shoes’, which did have a hole in them.

“At one of the rehearsals, I sat down and had a cup of tea with the King after the rehearsal and I put one shoe behind the other so the hole wasn’t visible.

“So we did go to the shoe shop a few weeks ago and I have a new pair of DMs especially for the day.”

The archbishop has spent time with the King on two visits by the new monarch to York, once during a two-day tour of Yorkshire and once when he attended a Maundy service at the Minster.

Speaking of the coronation, he said: “It was a glorious, humbling and historic occasion and I’m very blessed to have been part of it. But what did it all mean? And how does it make sense in the diverse smorgasbord of cultures that make up a largely secular but at the same time multi-faith 21st century Britain?

“Let’s start at the beginning. For me, one of the most moving bits of the service, and an innovation in this coronation service, was that the first person who spoke was a child, who said to the King, ‘Your majesty, as children of the Kingdom of God we welcome you in the name of the King of Kings.’ “And the king replied, ‘In his name and after his example, I come not to be served but to serve.’”