The Guildhall

The Guildhall in Leicester is a 600 year old Grade I listed timber framed hall (c.1390) that has been used as the Town hall, meeting space, feasts, weddings, theatrical performances, town library, courtroom and Leicester's first police station (c. 1836).

It is believed to have been visited by Oliver Cromwell, and that William Shakespeare performed here.

The site has been an active museum since 1926 and continues to host performances, private meetings and weddings.

This 449 brick model recreates the site with it's courtyard and surrounding buildings and attempts to replicate a number of the internal rooms, as much as is possible within a miniature build.

The build is quite intricate and uses a number of techniques to create the overhanging upper floor of the main building and sideways tiling for the timber effect along the great hall and windows within the Mayor's Palour. This should make this an interesting model to build as well as both a detailed display piece and interactive model that hopefully captures the look of the real location.

There are two sections of roof that will slide out to reveal the upper floors: library and meeting rooms, and bedrooms.

Two sections of the model lift off: the upper floor of the main building reveals the ground floor room which houses the old cells, and the roof of the great hall itself.

The wall on the opposite side of the model swings open to reveal the Mayor's Parlour where I've included the fireplace and mayoral seat using printed tiles, along with the windows, flooring and chandelier.

The courtyard area is tiled and contains a balcony, a statue in one corner, a lantern and the elaborate clock on one wall. I have tried to recreate the structure as accurately as possible and I have placed miniature tables, beds and chairs to detail the rooms; although these may not be accurate to the actual rooms.

Outside there are two streetlights; the rear building was too narrow to detail internally but this is mainly used for exhibition rooms; similarly I left the museum entrance way a plain black due to it being a modern addition.

I used a limited number of printed tiles for some of the more intricate timber work around the windows as the effect is significantly better than Lego bricks at this scale.