The Woollen Line

Today we visited an exhibition of the Woollen Line in Crickhowell. It is in an old barn, with peat on the floor. Very atmospheric.

The Woollen Line is a project conceived by a local artist, Pip Wolff, in 2009, to restore the top of a mountain (Pen Trumau) in the Black Mountains that was ravaged by fire in 1976, leaving an enormous scar of exposed peat, which, without intervention, would simply be washed off the mountain by rain and blown off by wind, leaving dead rock. Her idea was to peg mats made from sheep fleece in lines across the area, so that there is something to stabilise the peat, and to plant local tough grasses among them to gradually restore the mountain tops. Some 750 volunteers and quite a few pack horses have made the long haul up the mountain, where it is perpetually cold and windy, to work on the Woollen Line. Even a locally-based Ghurka company has helped. This exhibition celebrates the progress that has been made. Hence the peat on the floor.

You can see more about the project here.