A five-year-old girl has amazed her parents and teacher by swimming a mile in little more than an hour.

Ella Stuttard managed to swim the 64 lengths of the pool at The Girls' Grammar School, Bradford, in one hour and seven minutes.

Her mother, Rachel Stuttard, said the family will now contact the Guinness World Book Of Records to see if Ella is the youngest ever to swim a mile.

She said: "It looks like she will have to do the mile again because if it hasn't been done before then we need official witnesses to watch her do it.

"I can't believe that she has done it at five - it is just unbelievable.

"I wouldn't force her to do anything she doesn't want to, but she obviously loves swimming - I can't get her out of the water.

"I was a swimmer as a child, but nowhere near as good as Ella. She has been able to swim under water since she was a baby.

"But the only reason I ever took her to swimming lessons was so that she would be able to swim if she ever fell in the canal next to our house, and she was very good at it right from the start.

"I don't think she has actually realised how far it is yet!"

Ella, of Beck Lane, Bingley, attends two swimming lessons a week at the school and at Cannons health centre in Cottingley.

During the summer she has also enrolled on a more intensive swimming course with Yvonne Grant, her swimming teacher at school.

Mrs Grant, 49, said: "I have never come across anything like it before in my 33 years of teaching swimming - she wasn't even out of breath when she had finished the mile.

"Last week she managed half a mile and I thought I was pushing her a bit. But she looked so strong, so we thought we would try to give her a bit of a challenge by a mile - but she did it easily.

"The fact that she did it in just over an hour makes it doubly impressive.

"Generally children can do a mile when they are about seven or eight, so Ella is about two or three years away from where she should be "Swimming a mile is no mean feat at all.

"Exercising for an hour in the water is very strenuous, but Ella has got a very good stroke.

"She is a very strong and powerful girl."

Looking to the future, Mrs Grant said she thought it was too early to start thinking of swimming nationally, but felt Ella has got all the talent needed.