Marble Runs by Alex Schmidt of Switzerland

Marble runs are Alex's first love. His ambition is to do nothing else in life but make amusing mechanical works of art.

Sadly, the time involved in their design and the actual making means that they are too expensive for all but a very few.

Hence Alex has to work at other more mundane jobs in northern Switzerland between each commission.

We bought our first run from him nearly 8 years ago. It was so popular with our visitors that we soon added a second.

Alex gives each one of his creations a name.

The first two were called `Curriculum Vitae` and `The Worker`.

When we opened our new upstairs showroom in 2000 we had a large blank wall above the staircase stretching to the apex of the roof.

Alex was commissioned to build the biggest marble run in Britain and probably the world.

It was named `Snooki`, as it runs on snooker (pool) balls. It took five months to build.

To see more of Alex's work click here to go to his website.