'I won £40m on the National Lottery so I built my own mansion with a pool and a lake'

A National Lottery winner from a Nottinghamshire town has built himself a 6,000sqft mansion after winning £40million. Gareth Bull, 53 and from Mansfield, decided to build his dream home after bagging the impressive sum in January 2012.

But Gareth's dream took time to materialise, as he completed the development during the pandemic, when he "carried on alone". Now, 13 years after he won the £40,627,241 EuroMillions jackpot, he revealed how he has spent some of the overwhelming sum.

The father-of-two said: "I bought a three-bedroom bungalow on a large plot of land in December 2018, knocked it down and moved into a caravan on the site – much to the amusement of all my friends. They said 'you’ve won £40,000,000 and you’ve moved into a caravan!'

"I basically started digging and just didn’t stop, and when lockdown happened and the builders had to stop, I just carried on alone. The finished house has four bedrooms with en-suite bathrooms and their own separate staircases, an eight-foot projector screen, a swimming pool complete with a wave machine, plus two hot tubs.

"Also during lockdown I started digging a pond but, again, I just kept going, and I shaped it into an ‘L’ for lottery and turned it into a lake, the size of two tennis courts. I also built a ‘Lottery Lodge’ beside it."

Gareth's first purchase was more modest, however, as he bought a new iPhone to upgrade from his old one. The reveal of Gareth's expenditure comes as the National Lottery celebrates its 30th anniversary on November 14.

To mark the occasion, 30 National Lottery millionaires from the past three decades were invited to a landmark photoshoot by Rankin, who photographed the likes of Queen Elizabeth II and the Rolling Stones. The London photoshoot also included Gareth.

Rankin said: "I am extremely lucky that I get to meet and work with extraordinary people, from famous actors and models right through to NHS nurses. I remember when The National Lottery first started, and it was intriguing to meet the real winners and hear their stories and experiences.

"They are normal people who have had an extraordinary thing happen to them, transforming their lives. That is what we set out to capture."

Over the past 30 years, the National Lottery has created more than 7,400 millionaires and paid out more than £9 billion in prizes. A total of £49 billion has also been raised helping support thousands of projects and charities, transforming communities across the UK.

Kathy Garrett, Winners’ Advisor at Allwyn, operators of The National Lottery, said: "The National Lottery has been changing lives, helping communities and supporting charities for 30 years. On average seven millionaires are created every week across our games and Gareth is a representation of just a fraction of the lucky players who have won incredible sums of money over the years."