'I used drone footage to make castle cake'

Using drone footage, Michele Walters has recreated Belvoir Castle in Leicestershire in cake form.

Ms Walters, who runs Love Life, Eat Cake - which is based in Oakham, Rutland - said she spent about two weeks creating an edible version of the landmark, which had featured in many films and TV series.

The four-foot (1.2m) wide cake is mostly made of sugar paste, but a couple of the towers were created from gingerbread. It will be displayed at the castle for about a month during the Christmas period.

Ms Walters said the project was one of the most complicated she had ever done and the process "has possibly aged me about 20 years".

The castle has featured in many films and TV series, including Netflix's The Crown as a stand-in for Windsor Castle, The Da Vinci Code, The Young Victoria, The Haunting and Victoria and Abdul.

Speaking of the castle cake creation, Belvoir Castle marketing manager Eleanor Melville said: "She's gone so true to the structure of the castle.

"The heights of all the towers are perfect. The amount of windows on the turrets are perfect. The attention to detail is just amazing."

"It is rather big," Ms Walters added.

"There are not many straight lines [on Belvoir Castle]. Not many sort of proper right angles."

The cake was commissioned by Belvoir Castle so it could be displayed to visitors over Christmas.

Ms Walters said the creation was edible, but "because it will be on show for about a whole month, I don't think you'd want to eat it".

"It took hours and hours of watching drone footage provided by Belvoir Castle," she said.

"Lots of studying, lots of photos from every angle that I can find.

"And I did actually build it out of cardboard boxes first, before doing the actual thing, because otherwise I don't think it would have been possible."

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