FIVE Cumbrian dry stone wallers are set to create the centrepiece of a major exhibition at the London Royal Academy.

The group has been enlisted to build a full-scale version of the jaunty Langdale barn created by famous German sculptor Kurt Schwitters.

Schwitters originally came to Cumbria as a refugee in 1947 to work on his stark, Dada-style scupltures.

His notorious ramshackle barn was commissioned by the Museum of Modern Art in New York and still sits in remote Lakeland woodland.

The replica is to be exhibited in the forecourts of the Royal Academy in January, as part of the first major British sculpture exhibition in more than 15 years.

Works by Jacob Epstein, Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth, and a previously unseen piece by Damien Hirst will also go on show.

Tate Britain director Penelope Curtis is co-curating the exhibition and said she hoped Schwitters’s barn recreation would ‘make people think about where artists make work and who gets to see it’.

Mike Hodgson, of Langdale, will take charge of the bespoke building project.

He said: “The job feels quite prestigious. I’ve never commuted through London before and my task is going to be interesting – although to my wife and children it is just another day at work.”

Langdale sheep farmer Mike Edmundson, 49, will also travel south to aid construction.

He said: “I’ve helped restore the artist’s original barn which was a big job, so I should know what I’m doing.”

Stone waller Darren Woolcock, 39, of Coniston, added: “We always try to do a quality job and it’s great to think our work will be seen by thousands of art lovers.”

Director of the Littoral Arts Trust Ian Hunter said Schwitters’s original barn had fallen into disrepair before curators took an interest in the inconspicuous art house.

He added: “The New York Museum of Modern Art love Schwitters’s work and now there’s a growing local pride – and people have claimed him as a Cumbrian artist.”