Rupert Cordeux is fascinated by cathedrals – so fascinated that he builds them himself.
His are smaller versions of the real things, but perfect in every detail. And being all hand drawn, he believes they are unique in the world.
A dining table at his home in West Avenue, Stoke Park, Coventry, is covered with miniatures of some of the most famous English cathedrals: Lincoln, Ely, Gloucester, Canterbury, and many more, each one perfect down to the last gargoyle and flying buttress.
He creates DIY kits of the models which cost up to about £30 and are snapped up by collectors at home and abroad.
His biggest market is in eastern Europe, but he was amazed to discover that even London’s Victoria & Albert Museum has a set of his kits.
The attention to detail in his models is astonishing.
He visits the cathedrals, paces them out, and takes painstaking measurements using a system he developed. He takes dozens of photos and uses Google Streetview and drone footage to help.
It takes months of effort to draw out the cathedrals in minute detail, at a scale of 1:240, transfer to card and create kits which other cathedral enthusiasts can then build for themselves.
The end results are models which, he reckons, are 95 to 100 per cent accurate.
They look stunning but, he says, they are easy to build since they are really just a series of boxes. But one of his fans goes as far as putting stained glass in the windows.
Cathedral building developed as a sideline for Rupert, an award-winning painter specialising in watercolours, but it’s become something of an obsession.
His latest model, Lincoln, is his 15th and he says: “When I have done all the English cathedrals I’ll stop”.
