THE Prince of Wales paid a special visit to Poundbury to meet a team of young stonemasons.

Stonemasonry students from The Prince’s Foundation have carved a ten-metre high stone obelisk.

The monument stands opposite Weymouth College stonemasonry school and centre for creative arts.

Tom Stainer, aged 26 from Sherborne, said he was delighted to meet Prince Charles and proud to have worked on the project.

He said: “I feel very privileged to be working on such an iconic project. The obelisk looks incredible now it’s complete. It will be able to be viewed from the stonemasonry department at Weymouth College so we’ll be able to look out the window with a sense of pride. My carving skills have taken me to heritage projects in the UK and much further afield, but I am most excited about contributing to the landscape on my own home turf. I come from just outside Poundbury so it’s a bit of a big deal for me.”

The group of students, who study as part of The Prince’s Foundation Building Craft Programme, took three months to create the obelisk.

It was created in workshops held at Dumfries house – the headquarters of The Prince’s Foundation. The students used intricate carving skills to create 20 blocks that were then transported to Poundbury for them to install the monument using traditional sand-casting techniques. The Foundation attracts students from all over the world and aims to pass on a wide range of traditional skills and techniques. Typically, graduates go on to work at heritage sites across the UK, where much of the skilled workforce is nearing retirement age and has traditionally not been backed by a succession of emerging talent.

Michael Goodger, built environment education manager for The Prince’s Foundation at Dumfries House, said: “We are very proud of the efforts of our talented and dedicated students of our Building Craft Programme in creating a lasting monument to traditional skills in the form of the impressive obelisk at Poundbury. Naturally, we were delighted when our charity’s president His Royal Highness was able to see for himself the results of the students’ hard work.

“Through our courses focused on traditional building skills, we hope to inspire a future generation of designers, artists, and makers to create a built environment that draws on a vast array of different skills, and celebrates the physical, temporal and even symbolic connections that can be realised through our buildings and places.”