I spent £25k building massive quirky cupcake in my magical West Midlands garden

A hotel owner spent £25,000 building a wedding venue in the shape of a giant cupcake - hailed by George Clarke as one of his favourite ever 'Amazing Spaces'.

Stephen Cuddy, 60, constructed the "world's biggest cupcake" in around four months in the garden of Grimscote Manor Hotel in Coleshill, Warwickshire.

Stephen made the huge cupcake-shaped venue, which stands at four metres tall and five metres wide, on a reinforced stable roof in the grounds of his hotel. 

Impressively, it has an unsupported, domed roof without any vertical central upright - akin to the Pantheon in Rome or St Paul's Cathedral in London. 

The interior is decorated with a natural wall featuring more than a hundred plant pots while a smaller cupcake-shaped bathroom acts as a supporting buttress.

It will offer hotel guests a quirky wedding venue or a unique opportunity to have afternoon tea and has a capacity of between 25 to 30 people.

The giant cupcake plan was inspired by the treats served at the 26 bedroom hotel where Stephen has previously built ‘the world’s smallest canal lock’.

The eccentric hotelier said: “I looked at cupcakes and thought that was the epitome of people going to afternoon teas.

"For some reason I started thinking about the architectural structure of a cupcake.

“And I thought it would be a good idea to be able to have a cake in a cupcake. And I thought: 'I can do this!'

"Also, my partner Gill said I can't do it, so I wanted to prove that I could - but it certainly wasn't a piece of cake. 

"Cupcakes can be architecturally beautiful but the difficulty was getting it to stay up right without any vertical upright.

"All the pressure is on the external walls but if you engineer it correctly, then it works out fine. 

"I'm not comparing it to St Paul Cathedral but in theory it's the same. 

"Art comes in many different packages and I wanted to do something a bit different. I like to come up with bizarre and wonderful things.

"People seem to enjoy it and if it makes people happy then I'm happy. People come here and are just fascinated."

The timber-framed building featured on the Channel 4 show George Clarke’s Amazing Spaces last week.

Stephen said: "I think he (George) believed the cupcake’s roof would collapse with no vertical support.

"The production team were worried it might not be structurally safe at one point but I knew what I was doing. 

“The cupcake has three ring beams and triangular cantilevers. Everything fell into place and interlocked with each other as I planned, which was a relief.

“I think I taught George a lesson not to underestimate anyone.

"It has an interchangeable interior so it's multipurpose, we're going to run a competition to be the first to have afternoon tea there - so you can have a cupcake, within a cupcake.

"It really is quite a magical place."

The cupcake’s roof is built from ring beams and supported by a steel band pulled taught to take the weight.

It also boasts colourful  ‘Paul Smith-inspired’ panels around the exterior.

On the episode, George said: "It's like a Japanese pavilion, like a piece of origami.

"I never thought cupcake architecture could be so beautiful.

"Absolutely unbelievable, what a piece of terrific architecture, an extraordinary piece of design

"£25,000 for two cupcakes - it's probably the most expensive cupcakes in the world.

"Steve never ceases to amaze me - a mix of engineering genius and architectural eccentricity." 

He had earlier described it on social media as: "Genuinely one of my favourite Amazing Spaces builds of all time!"