The building of the Millennium Wall at the National Stone Centre (NSC) in Wirksworth, Derbyshire, has been recorded on video, copies of which are now available from the NSC shop and the Dry Stone Walling Association (DSWA).

The video was launched during the May Day bank holiday - the first anniversary of the construction of the wall - with local Master Craftsmen and DSWA members Trevor Wragg and John Brown, who was also the Millennium Wall co-ordinator, giving guided tours of the wall.

The wall was created as a central record of various materials and styles of dry stone walling practiced in various regions throughout the UK (see NSS May 2000).

It contains 19 different 6m long sections, each of which consumed about 10 tonnes of stones imported from the appropriate regions for the styles being created.

Some of the stone used was newly quarried, some reclaimed. The video particularly picks out the reclamation of walling (featured on the cover of the video) recovered from one of the Queen Mother\'s Scottish estates.

The DSWA had applied for funding from the Millennium Commission to help build the wall but were turned down. One of the reasons given was that dry stone walling is not permanent, even though there are substantial sections of dry stone walling in buildings in Scotland, in particular, more than 2,000 years old.

Fortunately, backing was forthcoming from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, the PF Charitable Trust, the Ernest Cook Trust and the DSWA\'s patron, the Duchess of Devonshire, all recognised on permanent interpretive panels provided by the National Stone Centre.

Copies of the video are £15 from the Stone Centre\'s shop or £17 (including p&p) from the DSWA, PO Box 8615, Sutton Coldfield B75 7HQ.