A talented craftsman has been chosen to reinstate a historic well destroyed during the Second World War.

Jack Baldwin, a former pupil of The Woodroffe School in Lyme Regis, is part of a small team derived from across the UK tasked with restoring Lady’s Well on the Dumfries House estate in Scotland.

It was dug prior to the stately home being built for William Crichton-Dalrymple, the fifth Earl of Dumfries between 1768 and 1772, to serve Leifnorris House but was destroyed during an airstrike in 1944.

Jack, 20, and the team will restore the well and its overhead stone structure to its original design so it can again be admired by the 120,000 visitors that visit the Ayrshire estate annually. The estate, near the town of Cumnock, was saved for the nation 10 years ago by The Prince of Wales and is now used to help people engage in learning experiences that promote confidence and personal development as well as offer training in real-life skills to open up future employment opportunities.

Local craftsman Jack was offered a position as an apprentice on the project after impressing staff with his contribution during a training programme run by The Prince’s Foundation for Building Community.

Jack said: “I first heard about the training programme when I was at school and decided to attend a taster day in London. Through enrolling on the programme, I was able to gain hands-on experience of using traditional craft building skills and have since gained employment working on a variety of different historic sites, including walls and churches.

“I was really excited when I was invited back to work at Dumfries House as I expect to learn some advanced stonemasonry skills through working on the Lady’s Well project. Thousands of people visit Dumfries House each year and it’s amazing to think that they will get to experience a historic structure that I’ve helped reinstate.”

The Lady’s Well project is part of a series of ongoing training initiatives run by The Prince’s Foundation across the UK that aim to preserve for future generations traditional craft building skills such as stonemasonry, thatching, dry-stone walling and pargetting.

The project is part of an initiative to promote and preserve traditional craft building skills.

Gordon Neil, deputy executive director of The Prince’s Foundation, said: “Lady’s Well was a structure that existed on the estate before Dumfries House was even built. Local craftsman Daryll McMurdo is overseeing a small team of building craft apprentices, including Jack, who have previously taken part in traditional craft skills training programmes at Dumfries House. The apprentices will get to expand their skills while restoring a historic structure for the local community and visitors to the estate.”