Colchester's Temple of Claudius, by James Pegrum

James Pegrum (peggyjdb in flickr) has been contributing highly detailed historical models to GWLS shows for the last 3 years or so. This year he's bringing a scale model of the Temple Of Claudius in Colchester, the remains of which lie beneath Colchester Castle. It was built in 44AD and is where the emperor of Rome, Claudius, was worshipped as a God. The Romans saw the temple as a symbol of their power and success.

Of course the real thing no longer exists so James has based his model on non-LEGO models that others have made such as this one on flickr. It's constructed from about 10,000 pieces, including many small parts used to make the details on the 32 columns. James reckons it's taken something like 40 hours to build, over a period of 6 months, much of which was spent waiting for supplies to arrive from BrickLink.

The temple became a main target of a rebellion led by Queen Boudica, when Colchester was attacked in 60AD. "During the GWLS weekend, I will re-enact it being sacked by Boudica", says James, which presumably means that by the end of Sunday it will be in pieces and ravaged by fire... 

You can find more about the temple at Wikipedia.