Actor's favourite spot is canal

3:29pm Thursday 4th September 2008

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OSCAR-winning actor Kevin Spacey has named his favourite view in England to be on the Kennet & Avon Canal near Bradford on Avon.

Spacey hired a canal boat last year and cruised up and down the canal stopping off at every pub along the way.

He picked the spot as his favourite British countryside view as part of a new campaign to protect the countryside and his comments were featured in the Sunday Times Magazine last weekend.

Spacey said: "Boating on a canal is a great way to watch the world drift by, and it's a lot more relaxing - if a little faster perhaps - than travelling through the streets of London.

"What better way is there to experience the spectacular Avoncliff aqueduct in Wiltshire and the nature that surrounds this man-made canal.

"The thing I love about the countryside is you never quite know what you're going to get."

Spacey caused a stir in local pub the Cross Guns when he was spotted enjoying a pint and Sunday lunch in the beer garden overlooking the aqueduct last summer.

He even gave the barmaids there a signed photo of himself as a memento.

Gordon King, who works in the pub, said: "He obviously enjoyed looking at the aqueduct from the garden at the Cross Guns.

"We still display the signed photo he gave us on the bar and a lot of people comment on it.

"It says something like 'To all the girls at the Cross Guns, keep on pulling the pints'.

"He came in twice while he was on holiday, once on a Friday evening when nobody noticed him.

"Then he came again for Sunday lunch when he was spotted by a customer who came to the bar asking for a pen so she could get his autograph.

"Then of course the whole place erupted."

The canal was formed almost 200 years ago when two rivers were joined together by digging out a canal in Devizes. It runs for 87 miles from Bristol to Reading.

It was restored to its former glory by the Kennet and Avon Canal Trust and British Waterways thanks to a £25m grant from the National Lottery and £5m from local councils.

John Kirby, of the Kennet and Avon Canal Trust, said: "We are absolutely delighted that anyone chooses to spend time on the canal, but it's always nice to have a personality choose it, especially someone as famous as Kevin Spacey."