A Miracle at Cylinders!

– announcing a miracle at Cylinders!

Over the week-end of February 4th and 5th a miracle occurred at Cylinders, performed by a group of hardy Polish mountaineers who arrived from all over England.

As most of you will know, Cylinders was badly struck by Storm Arwen on November 26-27 2021.  A massive loss was the historic Leylandia cypress tree planted by Harry Pierce in 1967 outside the shippon.  Along with that giant went many other vintage trees, mostly birches and larch, 3 or 4 of which fell across the boundary wall and into the road.  These latter were almost instantly removed by our Council, for which we were and are grateful.

/The devastation, although it caused little damage to buildings, had a greater impact on the site than even the gales of winter 2015-16, and added to a 52 hour power cut caused by three larches falling onto the power supply lines, led to a bleak two months when we had to  close the site once again to visitors.  The visual devastation was added to by the fact that the larch copse by the Merz Barn, although perfectly healthy to the naked eye, had been condemned earlier in the year by the Forestry Authority, and an order served demanding its felling by the end of January 2022.  This was duly accomplished by contractor Mike Edmondson, but he is under extreme pressure up and down the valley since all others with larches on their land are working to the same time-line.  The condemned larches therefore are still lying where they fell, and after the storm Cylinders was left looking like a vast lumber-yard.

The whole thing was simply depressing, and apart from a small tidy-up to repair the waste pipe snapped by the fall of the cypress, and free the pathway to the Merz Barn, we resigned ourselves to a long wait before further remedial action could be taken.

But then, a mere ten days ago, an Angel appeared on site in the guise of Joanna Jozefowicz, an MA student at Salford College of Art.  Joanna knew the Merz Barn, having taken part in one of artist Jill Randall’s annual residency visits with her students (the next is scheduled for this March).  Joanna spent the day discussing her MA project with Ian, each of them growing more excited by the minute as they viewed the possibilities afforded by the site and its links with the gallant Polish Brigade during and after WWII.