James May's Lego house demolished

The Lego house was demolished on Tuesday morning

A two-storey Lego house built by 1,000 volunteers for BBC Two show Toy Stories is no more despite efforts to find a new owner to save it from demolition.

The house, created by presenter James May at Denbies Wine Estate in Dorking, Surrey, would have cost £50,000 to dismantle and rebuild.

Plans for Legoland in Windsor, Berkshire, to buy it fell through.

Meanwhile, May has called for the return of a Lego cat stolen from the house on Sunday or Monday.

'Coming down'

Denbies Wine Estate had said the house could not remain because it needed the vineyard back to harvest its grapes.

James told us last night that Fusker was a unique addition to the house because he was built by a fan, rather than one of the team of Lego enthusiasts enlisted to work on the project Top Gear website on the missing Lego cat

When Legoland pulled out "due to the costs and logistics of moving and rebuilding the house", the website of Top Gear - also presented by May - set up a page on the Facebook website to try to find a buyer for the house.

A blog posted on Tuesday morning on the Top Gear website - which had championed the Lego house cause - said: "Today's the day then.

"Despite James' best efforts, your comments on this site and the 2,500 fans signed up to our Facebook group, the Lego house is coming down.

"We spoke to James last night and he confirmed that brick-by-3.2 million-brick, it'll be dismantled this morning."

Meanwhile, May has appealed through the Top Gear website for the return of the Lego cat, named Fusker, which is based on his real cat.

The blog posting said Fusker had disappeared after "security allowed a few members of the public to have a nose around the house".

"James told us last night that Fusker was a unique addition to the house because he was built by a fan, rather than one of the team of Lego enthusiasts enlisted to work on the project."

May is appealing for the cat to be returned to the Top Gear offices in London.