GARDEN designer Chris Myers scooped a Silver Merit Royal Horticultural Medal at the Gardeners’ World Live show in Birmingham.

Chris, of Thornton-in-Craven, worked with volunteer lock keepers for the Canal and River Trust ‘making life better by water’ garden - created to inspire people to visit the nation’s waterways.

He said: “We’re thrilled to receive an RHS Silver Merit award. We hope that visitors will be inspired to visit our beautiful canals and rivers and appreciate their magical ability to provide places of fun, exercise, peace and tranquillity.”

The garden includes a life-size canal, tunnel and boat, surrounded by native trees, wildflowers and water-loving plants. A towpath leads the visitor to a traditional boatman’s shelter with a vegetable garden and small flower garden of calming and sensory flowers.

Chris Myers developed the garden with volunteers and passionate gardeners, David and Hilary Godbehere. David and Hilary volunteer as lock keepers at Curdworth on the Birmingham & Fazeley Canal.