Apprentices from south Cumbria are helping to keep traditional skills alive as they learn to look after important old buildings in the care of the National Trust.

And, thanks to funding from a generous overseas supporter who grew up in the Lakes, one apprentice is specialising in masonry and walling.

Rhys Whirity, 19, of Coniston is in his final term of a three-year trowel occupations apprenticeship.

He is being supervised by the National Trust’s conservation building team manager, Ian Walmsley.

Rhys has helped on a number of projects – slating and rebuilding a curved stone arch lintel at Grasmere, reroofing above a new café at Wray Castle, work on a barn gable at Cockley Beck in the Duddon valley and rebuilding a wall at a 17th century farmhouse near Ambleside, that belonged to Beatrix Potter.

Rhys said: “The first time I helped rebuild a wall, learning about the 'old ways' of traditional walling was during two weeks of work experience at Thwaite Yard, while at school. They helped make my mind up that I wanted to be a builder and to learn to look after historic places.

"My favourite project so far was rebuilding a wall at Townend, a 17th century Cumbrian farmhouse. We combined old and new techniques such as block-laying and stone-walling. The last time this wall was worked on was probably a hundred years ago and now I'm working on it – that's an incredible feeling."

Rhys’s post is funded by an overseas supporter, who grew up in the Lakes and now lives in America. The anonymous donor set up a fund to support the National Trust in tribute to her parents.