Cathedral model in shape
It's taken 13 years and equal measures of sweat and tears but the model of a spectacular cathedral that has been completed in a labour of love by a former Black Country student, is a stunning end result.
It's taken 13 years and equal measures of sweat and tears but the model of a spectacular cathedral that has been completed in a labour of love by a former Black Country student, is a stunning end result.
Chris Moseley has finally finished a project to restore and complete the model of the cathedral, once planned to dominate the skyline of Liverpool. The former Stourbridge Art College student is now head of models conservation at the National Conservation Centre in Liverpool.
Since 1992 the 47-year-old, formerly of Pedmore, has been leading a project to complete a scale model of a cathedral planned for Liverpool, which was abandoned after the Second World War.
Chris and his team have spent 13 years restoring what was left of the original model, completing it in 2005. After a couple of years spent preparing it for exhibition it is now at the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool.
Architect Edwin Lutyens was commissioned to design a cathedral for Liverpool's Roman Catholic community in the 1930s, on the site of the Metropolitan Cathedral but the Second World War and a lack of funds meant that only the crypt was built.
If completed, the cathedral, at 520 ft, would have been higher and larger than the city's Anglican Cathedral.
Work on the model finished before the interior could be completed and in 1975 it was presented to the art gallery.
The model was made at the suggestion of Lutyens to show his design in three dimensions and assist in fundraising for the full-scale building.
It was built by Thorp, a firm of architectural modelmakers, and shown to great acclaim at London's Royal Academy in 1934. It was later shown in Dublin and at St George's Hall, Liverpool, in 1935.
Conservators have restored the model, which was damaged over the years, and completed it to Lutyens' final design.
Mr Moseley said: "This will be the biggest project of my lifetime. It is absolutely stunning and the inside of it is big enough to stand up in.
"When we got it, it was in an awful condition, the glue was coming apart and pieces were missing but we have now finished the work the model makers started 70 years ago."
He said he was inspired to pursue a career in model making by his art teacher John Tribbell at The Grange School in Stourbridge, now Pedmore Technology College.
He said: "I was not much good at anything else but art was always something I enjoyed.
"To think I was told model making was a silly idea." The exhibition, entitled The Cathedral That Never Was - Lutyens' design for Liverpool, runs until April 22 at the Walker Art Gallery.
The present Catholic Cathedral of Christ the King was opened on the Brownlow Hill site in 1967.
