BUILDING Durham Cathedral in Lego bricks probably won't take as long as the construction that started in 1093, but it is still a long way off completion as a brick is added for each £1 donated.

Schools and churches are doing their bit: the PCC of St Mary's, Barnard Castle, have pledged £600, which will help construct a 600-piece section of the Chapel of Nine Altars. The building of that section is being shared by members of the congregation at St Mary's, and pupils from Green Lane C of E Primary School (left), where there is a newly formed Lego club for the purpose.

Frances Stenlake, who has organised the Lego build at St Mary's, says that they, too, have welcomed the chance "to physically build Durham Cathedral in Lego rather than merely writing a cheque". When they started building after a morning service, "it was a really good talking point, and the children even let some of the congregation take part."

Since then, the children have been working on the building in the lunch hour, and the head teacher welcomes the project as an opportunity for the church to be involved with the school outside formal worship.

The whole scheme is helping to raise funds for the cathedral's Open Treasure, a development "to transform public access to some of the cathedral's most spectacular spaces and breathtaking collections". The completed model will require some 350,000 bricks, and will be as accurate a scale model of the cathedralas possible, spanning 3.84 metres in length, and 1.7 metres in height.