A man has spent £30,000 building his own canal in his garden - complete with a functioning lock system and a narrowboat converted into a swimming pool. Stephen Cuddy, 59, purchased a 35ft (10m) long vintage barge off eBay for £5,000 and constructed an accurate reproduction of a Victorian canal lock to house it. The self-taught architect started by digging out 30-40 tonnes of soil on a small plot of land in the grounds of a hotel he owns in Coleshill, Warwickshire.
Over the next six months he spent another £25,000 constructing a full-functioning canal lock complete with lock gate and water pumping system to fill and empty it. He also built a redbrick lockkeeper's cottage, an outdoor patio within a decorative tunnel alcove and installed a 29ft (8m) long swimming pool inside the barge. The eccentric hotel owner now reckons he has the world's shortest canal - with his boat able to travel a mere 24 inches.
His stunning creation recently featured on Channel 4's 'George Clarke's Amazing Spaces' with the host describing it as "awe-inspiring" and "off the scale brilliant." George added: "Stephen has delivered one of the most unbelievable Amazing Spaces builds ever." Stephen, of Coleshill, said: "It started when I told my ex-partner, who I am also in business with, I'm thinking of buying a narrowboat.
She said that would never happen so I got one." "But then I needed somewhere to put it as I knew she wouldn't be too happy when it turned up. The idea was to have it as a bit of an esc.