Trainee stonemasons from City of Bath College have gone head-to-head in a bid to represent the College at the prestigious UKSkills competition.

Ten of the College’s finest stonemasons were set the task of producing an architectural stonemasonry component from a draughtsperson’s drawing, with the top three going forward to represent the College at UKSkills, one of the industry’s most respected contests.

The stonemasonry stars of the future were judged by a panel including Chris Berridge, a former stonemasonry apprentice at City of Bath College who won a Gold Medal at last year’s WorldSkills event – putting him up there with the best young stonemasons on the planet.

Other judges included James Preston, another ex-stonemasonry apprentice and former winner of the UKSkills competition, stonemasonry lecturer Ray Sumner and work-based assessor Ian Jenkins.

The three students who will be going through to the UKSkills competition in May are Luke Kingston (first place), Justin Cross (second) and Daly Drevniok (third). Runners up were Stephen Poole and Peter Crinnion.

Ray Sumner said: “This was a really tough competition and I was extremely impressed with the standard of all the work.

“City of Bath College has a well-deserved reputation for consistently producing some of the best stonemasons in the country and this competition showed the quality we have in our current crop of trainee stonemasons.

“All of the students taking part deserve recognition for their hard work and I’m confident that the top three students in this competition will do the College proud at UKSkills.”