Following proverbial advice, the roof of the Shippon at Cylinders Estate has been fixed whilst the sun has been shining, with local builder Mike Hodgson retaining as many of the original slates as possible and only replacing with local Lake District blue slate where necessary.
BeforeAfter
Mike Edmondson, who farms in the Langdale, has removed the concrete floor of the dairy. Charlotte Skene Catling is designing an underfloor heating system powered by a masonry stove which will be installed in the coming months, then a level concrete floor will be poured.
Our aim is to have a working space ready by next spring. The grounds of Cylinders have also been prepared for winter, with Grizedale Arts’ team of volunteers using a flail mower in areas where brambles have been removed to prevent grow back.
In early December, Adam Lowe and Ferdinand Saumarez Smith will be travelling to the Lake District to talk about the project at a seminar titled “Reform Life”, organised by Grizedale Arts.
In July, Ferdinand Saumarez Smith and Gabriel Coleman travelled to the Lake District to present Factum Foundation’s plans for Cylinders Estate at the Langdale Gala, a community-led festival in Dungeon Ghyll.
Gabriel Coleman at Factum Foundation’s stall during the Langdale Gala 2025
Alongside Factum’s stall displaying books and facsimiles, Adam Sutherland, the director of Grizedale Arts, set up a mobile pottery; a pedal wheel on the back of a pick-up truck.
Adam Sutherland (Grizedale Arts)’s pottery stand
Back at Cylinders, the concrete dairy floor of the Shippon is being removed prior to installing an underfloor-heated concrete surface for the main space, which will be used as a print studio. With the help of ceramicist Michael Eden, the whole of the lower area of brambles has been cut back. Finally, Martyn Hudson and Sebastian Messer from Northumbria University visited with Alan Hathaway, who is about to commence a practice-based PhD on the Merz Barn.
Removing the former floor in the ShipponGabriel Coleman and Michael Eden removing bramblesFerdinand Saumarez Smith with Martyn Hudson, Sebastian Messer,
and Alan Hathaway from Northumbria University
Over the past two months, work has continued on the physical as well as the historical reconstruction of the Merz Barn and Cylinders Estate. In early April, Ferdinand Saumarez Smith (Director of Factum Foundation London) visited the artist Stephen Buckley in St Leonard’s to hear his recollections of visiting the Merz Barn with Joe Tilson in 1963 (prior to the removal of the wall), whilst he was a student of Richard Hamilton at Newcastle. Buckley also reminisced about having had dinner with Hamilton and that other great prophet of postwar contemporary art Marcel Duchamp at the Good Friends Chinese restaurant in Salmon Lane, Limehouse.
Work in progress at Cylinders
A lesser known member of the Cylinders constellation was Gwyneth Alban Davis, who lived in a caravan at the Langdale Estate and was printing under the name of the Caravan Press in the Shippon whilst Schwitters was sculpting the Merz Barn relief. Tracy Hill and Heather Mullender-Ross of the University of Central Lancashire co-curated the exhibition ‘Women in Print: The Caravan Press’ (until 3rd November 2025) at Allan Bank in Grasmere.
Allan Bank Gwyneth, known as the Caravan PressAllan Bank’s press
Grizedale Arts, our collaborator in the Lake District, is the 2025 winner of the Ampersand Foundation Award. Adam Sutherland and his team fully deserve this honour! We congratulate them and celebrate with them. Part of the prize money will be spent on establishing a working print studio at Cylinders in the Shippon.
In terms of physical reconstruction, Factum’s carpenter Tom Don installed restored windows in the Shippon in May. He continued lime plastering areas where cement render was removed. At the same time, a team of volunteers supervised by Grizedale Arts valiantly battled the brambles with a strimmer and hedge cutters. Mike Hodgson, a local builder, is about to begin the renovation of the near-collapsed roof of the lean-to extension to the Shippon. Mike Edmondson, who farms in Langdale, will be removing the concrete floor of the ‘milking’ section of the Shippon.
Michael Eden is a maker whose work sits at the intersection of craft, design and art. At Cylinders he was working to bring Harry Pierce’s vision of paradise back to life
Daffodils around the ShipponThe new info panel on the gates of Cylinders Estate
Cylinders Estate, the site of Kurt Schwitters’ Merz Barn, is named after the charcoal burners of the former gunpowder factory opposite. For two (apparently extremely unusually) sunny weeks in March, it was an explosion of snowdrops and daffodils, while initial restoration works commenced on the Shippon. The landscape architect Harry Pierce rented what became the Merz Barn to Schwitters. He also turned the Shippon, which had formerly been a forge, into a milking shed. In more recent years it served as a gallery for Littoral Trust.
Supervised by conservation builder Tom Don, chipboard, plywood, rotten windows, and cement renders were stripped from the building. Hemp insulation was installed above a beautiful end-grain wooden floor, and the stonework exposed by the removal of the cement was repointed and replastered with a traditional hair and lime mix. While work progressed on the building, a team of volunteers supervised by Grizedale Arts focused on clearing stumps, brambles, and bracken from the pond area next to the Merz Barn.
The highlight of the trip was a visit from Edward and Pauline Thorp, descendants of Harry Pierce, who afterwards wrote:
‘As soon as we opened the gates our spirits lifted. The initial clearance that you’ve done has taken the place back to something we could look at and recognise as the place we knew and loved. Meeting both the building and garden teams was equally encouraging since they clearly approach their tasks with knowledge, empathy and care.’
Nathaniel Mann and Jamie Castell spent several days at Cylinders conducting preliminary research for site-specific performances and sonic interventions. Their work, supported by an existing AHRC research grant, explores the echoes between the artistic legacies of William Wordsworth and Kurt Schwitters, examining how their art continues to reverberate around the landscape.
They constructed lithophones, sang and hooted into valleys, and played instruments in the resonant space of a cave to the bemusement of world-weary locals and live-streaming tourists alike. Their exploratory activities also included spending an evening chasing the calls of uncooperative tawnies with a local owl expert. In the process, they started to draw together plans for further funding applications that aim to use Cylinders as a base for other artistic interventions.
The work to restore the Cylinders Estate is ongoing. Dangerous and diseased trees were removed by local tree surgeon Joe Leaper. In mid-‘März’, a team from Factum Foundation will commence initial restoration work on the Shippon, an old blacksmith’s forge, so that it can provide accomodation for the next phases of the work.
At the same time, Grizedale Arts will be supervising a team of gardening volunteers on the estate; there was a huge response to their call out in December 2024, with other sessions planned throughout 2025.
Factum Foundation is a not-for-profit founded by Adam Lowe in Madrid, in 2009. It works alongside its sister company Factum Arte, a multidisciplinary workshop dedicated to digital mediation, producing works for contemporary artists as well as facsimiles for preservation purposes. Factum Foundation demonstrates the importance of documenting, monitoring, studying, re-creating and disseminating the world’s cultural heritage through the rigorous development of high-resolution recording and re-materialisation techniques. They have initiated and been part of numerous exhibitions, studies, conservation training programmes, and unprecedented joint projects involving major artworks and monuments from around the world.
The transfer of the Cylinders Estate to Factum Foundation represents a significant step towards preserving and promoting Kurt Schwitters’ legacy. Working with other local charities and universities, Factum Foundation will transform the site into a dynamic cultural hub to support the meaningful learning and interaction with Schwitters’ Merz art.
In addition to the barn, the estate also includes a cluster of buildings that will be restored as a centre for artists and scholars passionate about Schwitters and his legacy. Factum Foundation aims to establish an annual residency programme for refugee and displaced artists, providing the kind of sanctuary that Schwitters found on the estate in the years before his death in 1948.
Part of the Merz Barn’s wall was relocated for preservation to Hatton Gallery in Newcastle in 1966 by the artist Richard Hamilton working with Fred Brooks and others. Using its experience recording and replicating artworks and cultural heritage sites, Factum Foundation proposes the reunification of Schwitters’ final installation by creating a facsimile of the missing wall section.
As a Charitable Incorporated Organisation, Factum Foundation London is actively seeking a new model for this unique rural site. It needs local support from those who care about the Lake District and artists of singularity and originality. Success will be measured by the ability to convey the importance of the legacy Schwitters left as a refugee who contributed to a fundamental change to cultural life in England.
Factum Foundation seeks to develop a new approach to heritage management and will need support from philanthropic individuals, institutions, government agencies and artists. Littoral Trust benefited from the generosity of artists including Damian Hirst, Anthony Gormley and the Boyle Family. Many more will now be needed to make this vision of the site a reality. Since its creation in 2009, Factum Foundation’s core mission has been to preserve the past, empower the present, and inspire the future, preserving cultural heritage for future generations.
Through careful conservation and thoughtful programming, the Merz Barn is poised to become a vibrant centre of artistic activity and cultural exchange, honouring Schwitters’ innovative spirit and enduring influence on contemporary art. Working with other local charities, including Grizedale Arts, Factum Foundation aims to transform the site into a place of tranquillity, refuge, reflection and learning in celebration of a great artist whose cultural influence is growing and is more relevant than ever.
Factum Foundation’s work at Cylinders will be judged on the impact it makes locally, the transformation of the garden, the revival of interest in Kurt Schwitters unique creativity and on the depth of experience of those who visit.
from July 30th 2022 (2 – 5 pm) The Merz Barn, Elterwater, LA22 9JB
Entartete Kunst (anti-Fascist) Artists Memorial
The Schwitters Stone at Cylinders
You are cordially invited to the Entartete Kunst (anti-fascist) artists’ memorial, commemorating the artists who were persecuted by the Nazis and declared ‘degenerate’ (entartet) and forced into exile.
дітей– Ukrainian public art project – artists and architects against fascism in Europe This year the memorial event is also dedicated to the memory of the 600 children and mothers who died in the Russian bombing of the Art School in Mariupol to which they had been evacuated, on 16th March 2022 <https://apnews.com/article/Russia-ukraine-war-mariupol-theater-c321a196fbd568899841b506afcac7a1>
Programme 8th October:
/2.00 – 5.30 pm Guided tours of the exhibitions at the Merz Barn site – KS75 (75th anniversary of the creation of the Merz Barn artwork. The Entartete Kunst and Kurt Schwitters exhibition includes the ‘Children of Mariupol’ public memorial and the Ukrainian Architecture Pavilion project.
6.00pm A light supper of home made vegetable soup and local sourdough bread with musical accompaniment.
9.00 pm Weather permitting, the event will conclude with the lighting up of the Ukrainian Land Art project with 500 candles marking out the outlines of the Ukrainian word for children; (дітей) on the landscape site near the Merz Barn. The ‘Reading of the Names’ of the entartete Kunst artists will take place afterwards in the memorial circle beside the Merz Barn.
in the Dark Bunker (Children of Mariupol project, 2022, Ian Hunter)
LITTORAL/Projects Environment
Registered Charity No.1002365; Registered Company Limited by Guarantee No. 0526443
PART OF THE KS75 ANNIVERSARY EXHIBITION AT CYLINDERS
Chalk inscription at Cylinders: ‘Children’ in the Cyrillic script. Drone image by Craig Wishart.
THE DARK BUNKER
To the Bunker
Background to the work
The work is in two pieces: the bunker, set in the trees to the right of the path to the Merz Barn, and an inscription in mown grass on the grassy hill above. Designed by artist Ian Hunter it commemorates one of the most infamous acts of the current Soviet invasion of the Ukraine. In February 2022 the town of Mariupol came under fierce attack from the Russian bombers, and the decision was taken to move the women and children sheltering in the hospital to the more strongly built Mariupol Art School. To protect them there the word ‘Children’, in Russian, was painted in large letters on the car parks at either end of the building. The barbarian Russians took this as a signal to blast the building to smithereens, killing over 600 women and children.
The School of Art before and after the destruction
Shippon, Drawing Office & marquee on the left, Merz Barn far right
View of the bunker. Photo Camilla Laing-Tate
Inside the Bunker
Artist’s Statement
The Dark Bunker – the Ukrainian Architecture Pavilion at the Merz Barn A monument against fascism
This project was partly inspired by the Serpentine Gallery’s ‘Black Chapel’ architecture pavilion commission, undertaken in 2022 by a partnership involving US artist Theaster Gates and Ghanian/British architect Sir David Adjaye. Past Serpentine gallery Architecture Pavilion commissions have averaged around £1 million per project. Although the Arts Council rejected our bid to the Arts Lottery for a memorial to the Children of Mariupol pavilion created in partnership with a design partnership in the Ukraine, we decided that we would go ahead with our proposal for a flagship project at the Merz Barn. Our solution to the funding challenge came about with the support of the local community and through the intervention of climate change.
As a result of the extreme storm (Arwen) at the end of 2021, and in early January 2022, about 30% of our mature trees were felled by the gale force winds in two nights. The whole site was flooded and looked like a battlefield, as in some places it still does. Most of the large fir trees in the open space to the right of the Merz path fell during the storms; they are now incorporated in the construction of the Dark Bunker.
With the help of local farmer/contractor Mike Edmondson and landscape contractor Dave Middleton we cut, trimmed and realigned most of the large mature storm-felled trees to build a giant log cabin. This was a major undertaking in itself, but the excellent partnership of Mike and Dave came up with a practical solution. They too were inspired by the ongoing heroic struggle of the Ukrainian people against Vladimir Putin’s fascist military regime and gave their full support to the project.
After the rain!
Ukrainian children in a bunker, 2022
The Children of Mariupol project and the accompanying Sculpture Trail and Exhibitions will remain open until the end of October 2022, 10am to 5.30 pm – subject to an absence of serious gale damage.
There is car parking onsite, and no charges are made. Those who wish to are welcome to make small donations to offset the costs of the candles, and the chalk for re-whiting the landscape inscription.
Enquiries to Ian Hunter or Celia Larner on 015394 37309. littoral@btopenworld.com
AERIAL PHOTOGRAPHS BY CRAIG WISHART; ALL OTHERS BY CAMILLA LAING-TAIT.
Left: the Mariupol Municipal Art School theatre early March. Right 16th March 2022, the smoking ruins of the Mariupol Art School after it was deliberately targeted and bombed by the Russian military. Associated Press estimate that c. 600 women and children and elders sheltering inside the building died as a result of the bombing
Children of Mariupol Exhibition
You are cordially invited to attend the official opening of the дітей – Children of Mariupol’ exhibition, and the ‘Dark Bunker’ – the Ukrainian Architecture Pavilion commission, both of which are organised in solidarity with the people of the Ukraine.
KS75 – the 75th anniversary of Kurt Schwitters Merz Barn project
The exhibition coincides with the KS75 – 75th anniversary celebrations of Kurt Schwitters Merz Barn project (1947 – 2022) in Langdale. On view will be exhibitions about Kurt Schwitters by contemporary artists, the heritage of Harry Pierce and Cylinders Gardens and proposals for a future Kurt Schwitters Merzbau Art Museum.
“A project of great artistic and cultural importance for Britain …..which I strongly support” Sir Nicholas Serota, Director The Tate Galley, at the opening of the Schwitters in Britain exhibition January 2013
“….[it is also] of considerable strategic importance, and direct relevance to my constituents In South Cumbria.” Tim Farron MP Westmorland and Lonsdale. (3/04/2022)
The KS75 – art events and the Children of Mariupol exhibitions are funded by Heritage Lottery Fund programme and are open and free to the public: 10 am – 5.30 pm, seven days a week, to Sunday 16th October 2022. Free parking on site.
If for any reason you can’t join us for the opening on Saturday 30th July, you are very welcome to come at any time over the next 12 weeks. Also if you would like to have a personal introduction and/or a guided tour of the project site and the exhibitions, we would be very happy to arrange this for you. Please book in advance. RSVP
