My family think it's hilarious. I seem to have a gift for finding people who are doing weird and wonderful things. Cycling across all the OS maps in the UK (Mark Wedgwood). Going to Rome on a 50cc moped called Rocinante (Chris Webb). Walking 3700 miles in Wales to raise awareness of ovarian cancer (Ursula Martin)
And building a scale model of Bradford Cathedral (Michael Scott).
Michael Scott's main hobby is constructing an N-scale railway layout of a fictional West Yorkshire town called Chandwell. I forget how I first found his YouTube channel; I think it was shortly before Bradford Cathedral asked if he would turn his talents to producing a model of the building, as part of Bradford's year as City of Culture. He said yes, thinking it would take about nine months. Two years and many fascinating videos later, he finally unveiled the finished artwork at the cathedral. I had to be there.
It helped that Graham's sister and brother-in-law live just outside Bradford, so they kindly put us up for the night and took the rest of the family off to the wonderful Science and Media Museum. I walked across to the other side of the city in the rain.
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| first glimpse of the cathedral |
My first impression of Bradford Cathedral was similar to Michael's: it's a bit squat. No soaring steeples here. The tower is short, and when you approach the entrance on the north side, the east end of the building is sunk into the hillside, making it look even smaller.
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| north side |
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| painted clock |
However, it was the parish church for a huge area, reportedly covering 51 square miles in 1810, and attracting congregations of 3000 people. Several balconies had to be installed to fit them all in. These are gone now, and the church became a cathedral in 1919. The major change since then has been a large extension of the east end in the 1950s.
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| exterior of modern extension |
About fifty of us had come to the presentation. Some were clearly family and railway modelling friends; others, like the two ladies I chatted to afterwards, were primarily interested in the cathedral, and had been mystified by the references to Michael's fictional town of Chandwell.
Michael Scott spoke about the gifts of looking closely and paying deep attention. When he'd been asked to make the model, he thought the building was fairly simple compared to York or Durham cathedrals. But over many hours of poring over photographs, plans, and satellite images, he had noticed the layers of history as successive generations had built and renovated, the differences between details he assumed were symmetrical, and the deliberate mistakes such as the weeping chancel - the subtle change in alignment between the old nave and the 20th-century east end. His model included some genuine mistakes and a couple of his own additions: the tiny street sign reads not Stott Hill but Scott Hill. And so, a few more layers of history have been added.
After a cup of coffee and a Mini Roll, I was duly inspired to have a close look at Bradford Cathedral myself. You really need a project to force yourself to look closely at something, I think - to be writing a book, making a model, giving a talk. A reason to double-check all the bits you thought you knew, and inspect all the things you thought you saw. But in my short look around, I:
- noticed, approvingly, that women seem to be important at Bradford Cathedral. They feature prominently in the stained glass windows and were instrumental in raising money to install bells.
- enjoyed the calm simplicity of the modern east end
- spotted some ancient stones that have been incorporated in the building
- looked at some old photos of the cathedral
- admired a community weaving, reflecting Bradford's woollen history
- and of course, had a good look at the model.
It's all made of paper and card, with the textures of stone and tile printed out and stuck on, but it looks a lot more solid than that sounds. I'd seen it on YouTube videos, of course; the real thing was both larger and smaller than I expected. The overall length, at about 70cm, is so big that they had trouble finding a display case to fit, eventually tracking down one meant for a Lego Millennium Falcon. But the details, which on videos were magnified by close-up photography, are tiny. The crenellations are just a couple of millimetres tall.
And finally, I bought a Pilgrim Passport at the bookshop and obtained my first stamp. Like the cathedral itself, the oval of ink is understated, seemingly simple. But it's the history it represents that is important.
Bradford Cathedral 6 June 2026
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