‘Michelangelo of Middlesbrough’ hailed for 27,000-hour model project

Lockdown hobbyist painted 1m tiny cobbles for scale model of Yorkshire town's demolished St Hilda's district

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Lockdown has inspired many of us to take up new hobbies, but for one Middlesbrough man, the pandemic just meant more time to devote to a mammoth project already nine years in the making.

It was business as usual," says Steve Waller, 61, a model artist and historian known affectionately as the Michelangelo of Middlesbrough" who has spent almost a decade recreating the town's historical St Hilda's district in his bedroom.