Retired Farmer Spends 30 Years Building Scale Model of Herod’s Temple

Alec Garrard

Alec Garrard, an 82-year-old retired farmer from Norfolk, England, has spent the last thirty years working on a 1:100 scale model of Herod’s Biblical Temple.

Mr. Garrard has liked creating models all his life, but as he was getting older, he began thinking about a single big project that would see him through to the end of his life. Having always been interested in architecture and religion, the retired farmer thought to combine his two passions and create a unique scale model of Herod’s Temple. He had seen one or two other models of the structure during Biblical exhibitions, but he didn’t find them accurate enough, and he knew he could do better.
The expert model-maker started working on the project when he was in his 40′s. He first spent more than three years just researching the Biblical temple and then began constructing the model, exclusively by hand.