Mike Duffy - Treasures of the Cathedral

Mike is a volunteer steward and guide at Durham Cathedral and his enthusiasm and love of the place shone through his very effective presentation on the Cathedral's Open Treasure Project.

This £10 million project aims to upgrade the "claustral buildings" (the buildings outside the church, around the cloisters) to provide visitors with an "experience to match its international cultural and historic value".  The stone-vaulted undercroft has already been opened up to provide a superb space for the restaurant and a new gift shop while work continues to develop exhibition spaces to a world class standard of environmental and security control within the Monks' Dormitory and Great Kitchen.  A grant of £3.9 million has been received from the Heritage Lottery Fund and fund raising continues apace.  One of the fund raising activities is the construction of a model of the Cathedral in LEGO - at £1 a brick; this has created a great deal of interest, especially among younger people. 

The Cathedral website is worth a visit to find out more of this exciting development - and make sure you watch the video at the foot of the page.

(A personal footnote:  I am one of the volunteer "Lego Makers" and thoroughly enjoy it.  While preparing this report I came across a You Tube video showing the Lego project where I was press-ganged into acting as a customer!
Eric Colling)