IT took 20 years to complete the colossal Taj Mahal, but this miniature doll's house has been 22 years in the making.

Miniaturist Jane Fiddick spent more than two decades perfecting the latest addition to the collection of dolls’ houses at 18th-century country mansion Newby Hall, near Ripon.

She acquired the shell of the house in 1995 with “very ambitious ideas” and has had to make changes along the way as various things did not work out how she first imagined.

And over the years she has been working on the labour of love she has been acquiring the many items with which to furnish the house.

Described as a fantasy mixture of 18th-century gothic and mid-19th century gothic revival, it was inspired by the work of William Burges, 1827-1881, an exuberant medievalist who designed the Church of Christ the Consoler at Newby.

The house is known as the Observatory and includes a turret housing telescopes for star-gazing and features a proliferation of fancy brickwork inspired by Keble College, Oxford.