A TRIO of Cumbrian men have found national fame after being named as three of the 40 dullest men in Britain.

The ‘boring’ hobbies of Archie Workman, Simon Barley and Tim Barker have landed them slots in a new book celebrating the ‘Dull Men of Great Britain’.

The mundane men are all members of the Dull Men's Club, which boasts more than 5,000 members.

Retired doctor Simon Barley, from the Lake District, has an unusual handsaw hobby and is now one of the world's foremost authorities on the subject.

The 77-year-old has collected around 1,500 handsaws and completed a PhD and written a book on the subject.

Upon the release of his book, ‘British Saws & Saw Makers from 1660’, Mr Barley said his ‘affair’ with English saws began in 1998 when he visited a ‘delectable’ tool shop in Sheffield.

“I was by then several years into a major project of converting a 19th century stone barn, and was more and more fascinated by the wonderful tools I could use,” he said.

“It soon became evident that there was little known about how saws were made in the days before automatic machinery and to come across this area of the unknown stimulated an old impulse to write up some research.”

Furness drain spotter Archie Workman is no stranger to fame after appearing as Mr March in the Dull Men’s Club Calendar 2015.

“It’s changed my life,” said Archie, who works as a lengthsman maintaining verges and ditches for Colton Parish Council.

“I’ve now started a professional public speaking business, where I go to organisations and companies giving a talk called ‘My Life in the Gutter’.

“It’s about my passion for drain covers and how it transformed my life.

“The calendar really resonated with people and the book is the next step on the journey. I think it’s the quirkiness of it that people like – it’s not really about being dull, it’s about celebrating the ordinary.”

Actor Tim Barker, who lives in Silloth, has been collecting toy soldiers for 50 years and he now has more than 12,000.

The 68-year-old has now set up a museum, Soldiers in Silloth, which houses half his collection.

Their fellow ‘boring’ Brits include a train station spotter, a vacuum cleaner collector, a roundabout enthusiast a mountain measurer, a plaque photographer and the man who runs the Apostrophe Protection Society.

The book’s author, and assistant vice-president of the Dull Men's Club, Leland Carlson said: "I thought it would be a bit of fun. The British are well known for being eccentric and this book is a celebration of that."