I’ve spend £4,000 recreating the Lake District out of Lego – it’s got out of hand
KEEN fell walker Jon Tordoff has spent £4,000 recreating the Lake District – out of Lego.
He planned the huge model by downloading Google Earth maps of the area and dividing them into a grid of 2,500 squares.
The artist then bought 200,000 Lego bricks using green, grey, blue and brown ones to accurately reflect the landscape.
Jon, 54, has completed the Buttermere valley and is now heading into Borrowdale.
He hopes to one day complete the entire Lakes region but has two obstacles – cost and space.
The model – built on wooden boards measuring 16in square – already covers 215 sq feet.
READ MORE ON LAKE DISTRICT
The 52 boards he has so far used are now far too big for his cottage in Milford, Derbyshire, and he has to use a local pub to display it.
And he has applied to the Arts Council in the hope of getting a grant to buy more Lego bricks so he can build iconic features such as Scafell Pike and Windermere.
Jon said: “It’s getting out of hand.
“This is what happens when you put an artist in lockdown, there had to be an outlet and this is it.”
Most read in The Sun
He spends hours every day plotting and building each hill, valley, lake and tarn and has now been working on his labour of love for two and a half years.
Jon added: “It’s been the most painstaking and difficult thing I’ve ever done but I’m really pleased with how it looks.
“I’ve gone to great lengths to make sure the topography is accurate, I wanted it to be a faithful depiction of an area that I absolutely love.
“It’s about as accurate as you can get using Lego bricks, but I wouldn’t advise anyone to plan their walks from it.”
The seed for the idea was planted from a visit to a Star Wars exhibition.
Jon said: “I thought it was interesting but noticed the Star Wars figures were just placed on pieces of material and I thought ‘If you’re going to put them in landscapes then the landscapes should be made of Lego’.
“That got me thinking about whether or not that would be possible and before much longer I was buying up Lego from eBay with an idea forming.
‘THE WHOLE HOUSE WAS BEING TAKEN OVER’
“I set out using a scale of 1:3125 which seemed reasonable.
“It meant the smallest piece of Lego with one stud represented something 10 metres high, which is the distance between contour lines on an OS map.
“However when I started working I soon realised that just to do Buttermere and the area around the lake would take up my kitchen table.
“Then I was using the floor and soon it felt as though the whole house was being taken over and the rooms are pretty small in my cottage.
“The biggest is only 9ft by 10ft.
“It meant to put the sections together I needed a much bigger space and thankfully the pub was able to help me out.
“I’m applying to the Arts Council for funding to do the entire Lake District, I’ve spent £4,000 so far so it would be a little expensive to do the whole thing.”
Jon said he was inspired by his love of the Lakes: “It’s tranquil and unspoilt.
Read More on The Sun
“I love the towering fells, the woodland and waterfalls.
“I can never go there enough and I would love it if my creation could be displayed in the Lakes itself.”