Chandwell: Meet YouTuber Michael Scott who is the mayor of his own model town

So some 40 years later it should be no surprise that he has followed in his footsteps by making his own scaled down creations.

In fact he has become something of a cult figure on YouTube where people aroind the world can see his latest work.

Now he is taking part in a heritage open day at Bradford Cathedral on Saturday September 14.

It will include guided tours, activities and stalls and Mr Scott will visit the Cathedral for a talk – “Smaller Scale, Wider Perspective: from miniature to marvel on a route less travelled” – all about his work on his model town Chandwell and his creation of an accompanying model of Bradford Cathedral over the next 12 months.

Mr Scott, an IT consultant from Burley-in-Wharfedale, said: “While I was growing up in the 1980s, I was always captivated by my grandad’s N Gauge model railway and I would spend hours with him watching the trains go round and round and being inspired by the buildings, fields, roads and bridges.

"I found myself as a 40-something man reflecting on this sense of wonder, as well as the nostalgia of train travel as a teenager in the 1990s.

“With some space set aside in my house, I set to building a layout. I’d intended to learn electronics and spend my spare time ‘playing trains’.

"But as soon as I started making buildings for my town, my outlook changed – this was the perfect way to express my creativity. I was as surprised as anyone to find out I was quite good at it.”

He said he loves modelling because it is far removed from his working life and it proves to be a good way to wind down.

Chandwell, set in 1993, was named using parts of his children’s names and became a place to build in miniature some of the buildings that surround him, in and around Bradford.

Before he knew it, I had replicas of the Midland Hotel, the old Poor Law building (which became the Registry Office), the New Beehive pub. Shipley clock tower appeared. Sowerby Bridge town hall, the Crescent, and parts of Brook Street in Ilkley all became part of his fictional town.

He added: “As soon as I started weaving made up tales of the residents of Chandwell into my videos, the town took on a life of its own, and now, five years later, my YouTube channel is part story, part how-to, as we follow the journey to complete this model of a fictional town in Yorkshire.”

He said the best part of building Chandwell has been the sense of community that has grown up around his YouTube channel.

He will spend 12 months working on a model of Bradford Cathedral and says the “project will likely consume my every modelling hour for the next year”.

You can visit Bradford Cathedral on Saturday, September 14 from 12 noon to 3pm for our Heritage Open Day, where you can discover more about Chandwell and the creation of the Bradford Cathedral model.