NewsSee inside world's LARGEST Lego store which has opened in London with massive six METRE Big BenThe popular toy brand has unveiled some truly British features at the Leicester Square store, including a tea-drinking mascotThe opening of the world's biggest Lego store has been marked with the unveiling of a Big Ben built from the colourful blocks - measuring six-metre high and made of 200,000 bricks. The structure, which took 2,280 hours to build, is the centrepiece of the Danish brand's new London store which has opened in Leicester Square, and it even features a working clock face which will be illuminated at night. The opening also includes the unveiling of a new Lego mascot named Lester, an English tea-drinking Minifigure, and the first Lego London skyline replica set ahead of its worldwide release in January. The phenomenally successful Danish company reports having sold more than 72 billion Lego "elements" or pieces last year. Loren Shuster, executive vice president and chief commercial officer at Lego said: "We want to inspire and develop children across the globe through creative Lego play experiences. "
Our Lego Brand retail stores allows children, parents and fans to explore the many different Lego products while getting a truly unique and immersive experience of the Lego brand." Lego made headlines last week when it announced it had no further plans for free giveaways in the Daily Mail following a campaign calling on advertisers to boycott newspapers promoting "demonisation and division" during the Brexit debate. The company - which ended its relationship with Shell in 2014 after a Greenpeace video highlighted the oil group's plans to drill in the Arctic - declined to say if it was responding to the campaign or if it had changed its marketing plans. Top Christmas toys for 2016 What is Elf on the Shelf? Like us on FacebookFollow us on TwitterDaily NewsletterFollow @DailyMirrorSubscribe to our Daily newsletterEnter emailTHE fabbest LEGO set ever created is going on sale in Liverpool before the rest of the world can get their hands on it. Three days before the new Yellow Submarine model (which includes mini figures of all four Beatles) has its international launch, the LEGO Store in Liverpool ONE hosts a special box signing session where fans can pick up the set for themselves and meet the man who designed it.
Kevin Szeto of Toronto, Canada, came up with the original concept for the model, based on the 1968 animated film which is reportedly a big favourite of no less than the Queen herself. After submitting it to a site where ideas for new LEGO sets are considered, it was eventually picked up by the Denmark-based toy company where the design was refined before going in to full production. It will be on sale globally from Tuesday, November 1 but Kevin will be signing the set right here in the city on Saturday, October 29. Kevin said: “As an amateur musician and songwriter, I have always been drawn to the music of The Beatles. The creation of the Yellow Submarine model was really my way of showing my affection for The Beatles. It is bright, fun, and colourful, which also made it a good subject to translate into LEGO form.” The Yellow Submarine isn’t the only Merseyside connection with the iconic building brick in recent years. Upton-born Matthew Ashton , one of the company’s design team, won a BAFTA as part of the crew behind The LEGO Movie where he served as executive producer.
As well as creating the popular Unikitty character for the smash hit movie, he has also featured in a number of behind-the-scenes documentaries about the toy phenomenon. The recommended retail price for the Yellow Submarine set is £49.99. Kevin will be in the LEGO store on South John Street between 11am and 1pm on the day. Toys R Us payment plan Vintage Star Wars toys Top toys for Christmas 2016 Top 10 Lego toys Most annoying children's toys How many Mattel toys do you know? Top 20 Christmas toys for 2015 Top toys from the pastMind the gap … between all 637,903 Lego bricks used to make this life-size Tube carriage. It is on display at the world’s largest Lego store, which opened today in Leicester Square. The London flagship has been two years in development and also features models of a dragon, the Elizabeth Tower and Big Ben and a Royal Mail postbox. The creations on display are made from 1.7 million bricks and together weigh five tonnes.
More than a third of those bricks went into the London Underground carriage, created in partnership with Transport for London. It took 4,000 hours to make and features an unusual passenger — a model of Shakespeare. Dylan Collie, 12, was given a sneak preview of the store and said: “There is so much to do. It was bigger than I expected and sitting on the Tube carriage makes it feel like the whole world has turned into Lego.” The 914 sq m store also has a 1:15 scale model of the Elizabeth Tower and Big Ben, which is 6.5m tall and weighs 1,035 kilograms. It took six model builders nearly 3,000 hours to create from 344,030 bricks, features a working clock and chimes with the sound of Big Ben. There are also models of a telephone box, the Leicester Square Tube roundel and an Underground map. Attractions include the world’s first Lego Mosaic Maker, which allows shoppers to buy a personalised Lego mosaic portrait. The machine captures the portrait before producing instructions and the bricks required to complete the image.
There are also play tables where children can sit and build. John Goodwin, executive vice president and chief financial officer of the Lego Group, said: “We want to inspire and develop children through creative play experiences — and this store is all about that.”I love deciding which sets I am interested in, I like reading and researching it, building it, playing with it and then making something else from it. I play with it for hours. With the world's biggest LEGO store opening its doors in Leicester Square I took my love of LEGO one step further and actually became a LEGO masterpiece Among the 1.7 million bricks used to build the vast models in the store there is a booth that turns people into 4,502 pieces of LEGO. The Mosaic Maker is a world exclusive to the London store which scans the face like in a passport photo booth, and then converts the image into a LEGO pixels. I am now officially a LEGO set. For me it was the highlight of my visit to the store, which began by walking through the Victorian tube station 'iron gate' made out of tens of thousands of black bricks.
After just a few minutes taking it all in I realised the shop had been made just for me... and the millions of other LEGO enthusiasts. The flagship store is made up of two floors with jaw-dropping replica models which took 10,000 hours to create. The centrepiece is a beautifully intricate, two-storey chiming Big Ben with a working clock face. The hourly chimes were the only clue to how long I had been in there. Brickley the dragon, complete with iconic London accessories of a bowler hat and black umbrella, is also coiled ready to welcome visitors. As I sat in between life-size models of William Shakespeare and a Queen's Guard, and just a few inches away from Her Majesty the Queen, I thought there couldn't be anything more English. The walls of the store are lined with sets to buy, from Architecture, Star Wars, Ninjago, Nexo Knights, Friends, LEGO City and to the cars and buildings of the Creator series. It is an experience where you can play at the activity station, although you might be rudely interrupted by an insistent remote control R2-D2.