Three of the five craftspeople who have won Queen Elizabeth Scholarships in the latest round of awards are stonemasons. Between them they receive £15,100 of a total of £27,300 presented this time.

The stonemasons involved are Sarah Pennal, Zo" Cull and David Gundry. They will be presented with their awards by The Lord Chamberlain, Lord Luce, at the Royal Warrant Holders Association\'s annual lunch in London in June.

The biggest single award goes to Sarah Pennal, a self-employed stonemason from Thorney in Somerset, who has won an £8,500 scholarship to spend six months travelling in Turkey, Syria, Jordan and Egypt to study the structural building techniques and design processes used for building and repairing arches, vaults, bridges and domes.

Sarah is 31 and spent four years as an apprentice stonemason at Salisbury Cathedral, attending Weymouth College on block release.

She gained a William Morris Craft Fellowship from the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings (SPAB) in 1995 and afterwards an MA in Conservation Studies at the Institute of Advanced Archi-tectural Studies (IoAAS) in York.

For the past five years she has been self employed, repairing and conserving historic buildings.

David Gundry is a self- employed stonemason in London. He has won £4,000 to attend a two-year course in building conservation at the Architectural Association.

Now 27, David studied stonemasonry at the Building Crafts College in London before spending a year as a banker mason with A F Jones in Reading, working on restoration and new build.

Last autumn he became self-employed and since then has been working on contracts from the Cliveden Conservation Workshop.

Zo" Cull is 32 and a stonecarver from Weymouth in Dorset. She has won a £2,600 Scholarship to study lettercutting with five of the country\'s top stone lettering experts.

Zo" studied architectural stonework and conservation at Weymouth College, completing her HND last summer. Her work has included a commemorative bench and inscription for the village of Cerne Abbas, several memorial stones and some conservation work.

She won a Civic Society Award for decorative stone roundels on Weymouth College buildings and went on to gain work experience with leading stone lettercutter Richard Kindersley.

Queen Elizabeth Scholarships advance education in modern and traditional crafts and trades in the UK. They are open to men and women of all ages and are awarded twice a year, spring and autumn.

The Queen Elizabeth Scholarship Trust is the charitable arm of the Royal Warrant Holders Association.

Since it was established in 1990 it has awarded more than £700,000 to 108 craftsmen and women of all ages.

Applicants for the awards submit proposals for training projects they would like to carry out. The Trustees look for well thought out projects that will contribute to the pool of talent in the UK.

For an application form for autumn Scholarships (closing date 17 July) send an SAE with stamps to the value of 33p to the address below, or download a form from the QEST website.