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2010, and a year of weather extremes! The coldest winter for thirty years - a freeze-up lasting for weeks and New Year snow-drifts piled high in the lane - a Springtime drought, a dismally wet summer (unlike some areas, Snowdonia was not short of water) and now, a truly seasonal Autumn. But plenty of groups of all ages have visited Gelli Iago throughout the year, made the best of whatever the weather, and taken home good memories.
Inquiries about membership have been pouring in too, often new leaders having first noticed the Centre whilst walking past and thought, quite rightly of course, that it would be a good place to stay. Welcome to Woverley School, Kidderminster, led by Adrian Hobday, to Wallasey District Scouts from Cheshire, led by Alison Bell, and to Eagle House, led by John Heaton. We also have two new Duke of Edinburgh's Award groups: Nick Tawney's Greenscheme D of E group from Warwickshire, and Woodbridge Open D of E group from distant Suffolk, led by Andrew Down, who have already made several visits – coming to Gelli Iago really is worth a long drive!
Early September saw a flurry of activity during one of the busiest working weekends in recent history. Rooms were emulsioned, the kitchen spring–cleaned, chimneys were swept, a log store built and the classroom rescued from near doom with new timbers, roofing felt and preservative – even the Brenig was there in overalls, armed with a paintbrush. By the end of the weekend the Centre was positively gleaming from the attention of so many helpers!
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By far the most visible activity around the Centre this year has been restoration work by the National Trust on the 16th century ruined farmhouse behind the Centre, the original Gelli Iago, for so long the sight of its leaning chimney and crumbling walls evoking images of a long–forgotten past. The angle of the chimney had become so great that it would likely not have stood another season of gales and storms, but with funding from the Snowdonia Appeal restoration work started this summer to save this historic building from inevitable collapse.
Diggers and dumper trucks rumbled slowly up the lane one day in early summer, heralding the start of the work, then crawled up the steep track to the old Gelli Iago. For weeks the team worked, first carefully taking down much of the gable end, with its huge fireplace and dry stack chimney, meticulously sorting and laying out the chimney stones so that the 'new' would be as close as possible a copy of the 'old'. Five hundred years worth of dust drifted up as stones and rubble were cleared, and the crumbling walls were slowly taken down. At last the reconstruction began – first the gable end and chimney, then the other three walls were slowly and methodically built up to roof height. It looks more cared for now, if strangely upright and level – we'd grown so used to seeing the whole place precariously leaning. The building still awaits a roof, when funding allows, but may be temporarily covered to keep out the elements.
The project hit the Welsh headlines when a mysterious hoard of shoes was discovered, buried in rubble at the back of the fireplace. nearly a hundred single shoes, possibly Victorian, and entirely separate from the ancient remnant of a child's shoe which was also found hidden away amongst the fireplace stonework, a widespread folk custom to bring luck, or maybe ward off evil. Why had so many shoes been left there, and not one matching pair? Maybe Gelli Iago was once the workplace of a cobbler? For now, at least, the mystery remains. And to think they'd been buried there all these years and we never even knew!
If you'd like to read more, click here for a link to the BBC News item.
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