Ed Sheeran has described his daughter as a “blessing” and a “miracle” after revealing he and wife Cherry Seaborn initially struggled to conceive.

Admitting that he and his childhood sweetheart had tried for “a while” without success, they had even booked appointments with fertility specialists to check that everything was ok.

They finally welcomed their first child - a daughter - last August after conceiving naturally during a holiday to Antarctica.

The Shape Of You hit-maker, 30, said he felt that daughter Lyra, now one, had been such a “miracle” that they decided to make the place of her conception her middle name.

Speaking to US radio’s The Breakfast Club, he said: “We had tried for a while to have a kid, and we’d started going to doctors and figuring out what was up.

“I did think it was a miracle, so that’s why I was like, we should have this in the name.

“A lot of it is mental. It’s about relaxing. So many of my friends have been trying different things like IVF or making sure you’re having sex at the right time on the right day and then they go to a wedding and get p***ed and relax and they get pregnant.

“It’s not a given. It is a real blessing when it happens.”