Sidney Sussex May Ball

18 June 2010, 15:03 | Updated: 18 June 2010, 15:55

Students at Sidney Sussex College in Cambridge built a 650 foot Venetian canal for guests at their traditional May Ball.

It cost more than £5,000 to build the artificial lake and river for the event on Wednesday night.

Sidney Sussex is one of the only Cambridge University colleges which does not have access to the River Cam.

President of the May Ball committee Denver Sheridan, 21, a third year History student, said: "The idea has been around for 10 years and this year we decided to make it happen.

All guests were taken on a punt from the entrance to to the dining tent. For the rest of the evening it was an attraction filled with guests on punts going round on it.

It was fantastic and went really well everyone worked so hard to make it special. It had a lovely Venetian feel and the punts nice twist on Venetian gondolas.

There's a bit of competition between the colleges but I think we killed them all."

Engineering students Rob Weatherup, 23, and Adam Lawrance-Owen, 24, created the display.

Teams of students worked through the day to build scaffolding and create a damp-proof skin filled with 88,000 gallons of water.

Tickets to the ball cost £110.

Photo - (c) Geoff Robinson.

students at sidney street creat canal