I spent most of last week in Durham, working on an equipment trial at the Unversity with one of the professors in the Engineering Department. We had a lot to achieve, and not much time to do it in, so we were all working pretty long and tiring days. Last year, when I was working on an earlier phase of this project, I had an unexpected free morning and was able to do some high-speed sightseeing. This year, there was much more limited opportunity to do anything touristy. Nevertheless, I was determined to make the most of being in Durham, and managed to negotiate to with the team that I could have a free hour first thing on Wednesday morning – they needed to set up and calibrate some equipment before I was able to run any tests on the system.
I made the most of the window of opportunity, and dashed up to the Cathedral in the centre of the city. I got to the Cathedral just as the morning service was finishing, and was able then to do an ultra-high speed look around it. I was hoping that the “Open Treasure” redevelopment of the cloisters would be finished. Last year, there were posters up inviting people to come back in 2016 to see the completed major refurbishment, new display space, and exhibits. Unfortunately, it’s not actually finished yet – the cloisters are still a building yard and the exhibition won’t open until July.
Nevertheless, I was very interested to see the progress on the scale model of the Cathdral, built entirely from Lego. It’s a fund-raising project whereby bricks are sold for £1 each to raise money for the Open Treasure project. So far they’ve raised over £250k, and the model is rapidly approaching completion. Indeed, it’s currently on track to be finished in July too.
Overall view of Durham Cathedral model in Lego
The picture above shows an overall view of the model so far. The roof isn’t yet finished, so you can look inside and see the details of the transept and pulpit, which make it clearer that it is in fact all made of Lego.
Inside the model
Naturally, I couldn’t resist the opportunity to buy a brick and place it on the model myself. This will form part of the roof – I took a snap of the instructions and the work-in-progress block that will be added to the overall model.
My block of Lego!
My piece is the 6×2 block – much better value I thought than just a little round one-stud block!
