A magnificent miniature church to help raise much needed money for charity!

John Trott, of Horsham, had been thinking of building a model church, based on two of his local churches, for a while.  As the chairman of the Horsham branch of the MS Society and a sufferer himself, John also thought that he may be able to use the completed model to raise much needed money for the society – and at the beginning of this year, he achieved his goal!  We’ll let John take over his story from here…

“The Parish Church of St. John is a fictitious church “somewhere” in Horsham.  The exterior architecture of the building is based on All Saints Church in Roffey, while the “stained glass” windows are taken from St. Mary’s Church in the Causeway, Horsham.

My wife, Sue, took photographs from every possible angle of All Saints Church in Roffey, which enabled me to make scaled drawings to work from.  She also took photographs of the stained-glass windows at St. Mary’s Church, which we then manipulated to the correct size for the model and printed on to tracing paper.

The model itself is made from card of varying thicknesses and strengthened, where necessary, with wood, again of varying sizes.  Altogether, there are between 350 to 400 individual pieces of cut card and each wall “stone” was drawn and inked by hand.

The lighting for the Church was supplied by The Dolls House Emporium, as was the “lawn”, the light over the gate, and the bulbs used in the interior of the building.  The street lamps are made from card at the top, then the tops of eye-drop bottles, black drinking straws and finally card at the base.  The fencing and gates are made from 234 cocktail sticks and the fence posts are made from wooden “tea-stirrers”.  As the model had to be light proof it meant there was no air circulating, so the interior is cooled with small fans.  I also hid a tape recorder underneath the table to play a few hymns, so it sounded as if the congregation were actually in the Church enjoying a service!

It took me approximately 600 hours, spread over 12 month, to complete the church, but it was completely worth it.  The purpose of the model is to raise money for the Horsham branch of the MS Society which will then be spent on the people of Horsham who unfortunately have MS.  I have been asking people who come to visit the Church to make a donation and the first 20 people who came to see it made a total of £150.00 between them!

I myself have MS, so all the model making was done from the confines of a wheelchair – a feat not possible without the help of a loving, understanding (and at times forgiving!) wife.”