A SOUTH Lakeland man believes he may have the tallest bamboo in the district growing in his garden.

Roger Bingham, of Ackenthwaite, near Milnthorpe, is a county councillor but may also hold a more curious honour thanks to the enormous plant that towers over his other shrubbery.

Mr Bingham said a gardening neighbour, ‘not prone to exaggeration’, estimated the tallest of the clump could be 40ft high. Certainly, it dwarfs the 11ft sunflower Mr Bingham is nurturing for a competition run by Milnthorpe Parish Church.

Mr Bingham was given the original plant around 40 years ago by a next-door neighbour.

He said the original source of the plant was Fairmead, Heversham. Fairmead's first owner, Kendal brewer Alexander Abbott, gave a shoot to his cousin, Ada Douthwaite, who lived in the property next-door to Mr Bingham, in around 1930.

Mr Bingham believes his bamboo belongs to the phyllostachys species - which clearly likes the moist Cumbrian weather.

Around a mile away from where Mr Bingham lives - near Eversley House, Leasgill - there is another large bamboo cluster, which Mr Bingham said might have been planted by the Argles family, who built the house in the 1950s.