WHEN Michael Scott set about creating a model town, he found himself constructing replicas of buildings in and around Bradford. The latest addition is a model of Bradford Cathedral - built from a template of cereal packets glued together.
Michael will be talking about the year-long project, and the rest of his model town, Chandwell, at Bradford Cathedral’s Heritage Open Day.
The event - Monumental Connections of Bradford Cathedral and its Miniature Model - will include tours and talks from local groups connected with the Cathedral’s monuments and memorials and their place in the city. Visitors can explore monuments to the Market Charter, the Jowett family and connections such as Broad Ford, which gave the city its name.
Michael’s mini cathedral construction is documented in monthly videos on his YouTube channel. The model will be unveiled in 2025, Bradford’s year as UK City of Culture.
Michael, of Burley-in-Wharfedale, describes his model as “a West Yorkshire town, set in 1993”. He started the project in lockdown, taking the name Chandwell from family members’ names.
“While I was growing up in the 1980s, I was captivated by my grandad’s N Gauge model railway, I’d spend hours with him watching the trains go round, inspired by the buildings, fields, roads and bridges,” he says. “I found myself as a 40-something man reflecting on this sense of wonder, as well as the nostalgia of train travel.
“With some space set aside in my house, I set to building a layout. I’d intended to learn electronics and spend my spare time ‘playing trains’. But as soon as I started making buildings for my town, my outlook changed - this was the perfect way to express my creativity. I was as surprised as anyone to find out I was quite good at it!”
Michael set about building in miniature some of the buildings he knew in the district. “Before I knew it, I had replicas of the Midland Hotel, the old Poor Law building (which became the Registry Office), the New Beehive pub, Shipley clock tower and an Ilkley street. It all became part of my fictional town. As soon as I started weaving made up tales of residents of Chandwell into my videos, the town took on a life of its own.”
Building the model town has changed the way he sees buildings: “Before I started making Chandwell, I’d go around towns and cities without really looking at what was around me. A city was just a utility; a place to get stuff done.
“To make a model of a building, you have to really look at it, top to bottom. How is it built? What holds it together? Notice the proportions of this bit, look at how that bit sticks out. Why did that bit get altered, and when? The more we look, the more we see. Every building tells a story. Look up in Bradford and marvel at the architecture above your head. It is beautiful and full of story. This altered how I see the built environment.”
Michael has discovered something about every place he’s made in miniature. “Bruce Forsyth opened Shipley clock tower in 1961; the shops at the bottom of Brook Street in Ilkley were the town’s first purpose-built shops with accommodation above; you can still see the crest of the Midland Railway in the stonework of the Midland Hotel.
“But the most interesting thing I’ve discovered is personal. As a lifelong IT geek, I’d never considered myself creative. I have no musical talent, no artistic ability. But here I am, able to craft a tiny city and tell tales to an audience of 15,000.
"I’m still an IT geek at heart but Chandwell helps me switch off after a long day at work.”
The first step of creating a model is a cardboard mock-up to see how all the elements fit together. When Michael decided to create a model of Bradford Cathedral he didn’t see it as too big a challenge; he thought the building quite small compared to other cathedrals - “and lacks the over-the-top gothic finery that would be hard to make out of paper and card.”
“How wrong I was. This building is huge,” he admits. “I spent hours looking at it in minute detail. I watched videos, made measurements, read books, really got to know the building. It took about 35 hours to break it down into manageable sections, and draw them all out. I ended up with 23 separate parts which will eventually glue together to make a whole.
"I’ve completed the card mock-up that helps prove the design. This is just cereal packets folded into shape and glued together, but it shows the size and scale of the model.”
He began with the nave - 22cm long, 6cm wide, 9cm tall. “The cathedral building is complex; it has evolved over centuries. Sir Edward Maufe’s 1950s extension is about half the overall model. The biggest challenge has been to work out how all these sections fit together.”
In his videos Michael explores the building’s history with the Cathedral’s Director of Education and Visitors, Maggie Myers. “Maggie is a knowledgeable historian but that’s nothing compared to her ability to tell stories and weave the human connection into the heritage of the building. I’ve discovered so much, from how the tower was ‘plonked onto’ the nave to alterations over the years and the families instrumental in those.”
Adding tiny details is Michael’s favourite task: “Stonework embellishments one millimetre big really finish off a model. I’ve been looking forward to seeing it emerge from the rough mock-up, to see the nave with its tiled roof in place, the tower attach to the nave, and adding the completed model into its hillside. All I hope for is for someone to look at it and think, ‘Yes, that’s Bradford Cathedral’.”
Other events at the Heritage Open Day: The Friends of Bradford’s Becks will showcase their Bradford Beck under trail, marking its route under the city centre; Jowett Car Club display of items relating to the Jowett family’s car factory in Idle, with classic cars in Cathedral Close; The Canal and River Trust looks at the Bradford Canal which served the city for more than 150 years. Colin Sidway, author of The Bradford Canal, will bring old cityscapes to life through tapestries; A Cathedral tour and themed monuments tour at 12.15pm and 2.15pm.
Says Maggie Myers: “We’ve embraced the theme Routes Networks Connections by taking inspiration from memorials celebrating local names connected with transport, particularly turnpikes, canal, cars and the beck below the Cathedral. To top it all off, a fascinating talk about model-making and the exciting prospect of a model Bradford Cathedral!”
* Heritage Open Day is Saturday, September 14, 12noon-3pm.
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