THE skills of the stonemason and sculptor are being revitalised at Hailes Abbey this summer by the aptly-named Barry Mason.

Mr Mason, aged 48, is working as the abbey's artist in residence throughout the summer and he is using techniques and tools that would be familiar to the medieval craftsmen who built the abbey in the 13th century.

Although he lives in Frampton Mansell, Mr Mason is no stranger to the Winchcombe area and once spent 18 months working as a mason at Sudeley Castle while he developed his sculpture practice.

He said he was delighted to be chosen by English Heritage as the abbey's artist in residence and will be on site until September 20 creating a "memory" of a rose window in the nave of the abbey's church.

He explained: "Imagine that the end wall of a church was flattened on to the floor - the window would lie in the nave. In actual fact in the cathedral at Chartres in France the rose window would fit exactly into the nave - it must have been designed that way."

"With all the millennial hyperbole," he added, " it occurred to me that a rose window could be seen as the pinnacle of the marriage of art and design and craftsmanship."

The original inspiration for his design came from last year's total eclipse of the sun and he generated the image by plotting 2,000 circles into a spiral pattern with 750 squares, each representing one year since the foundation of the abbey.

"It will not be a rose window in the literal sense, but I hope it will capture the spirit of Gothic architecture as interpreted by the Cistercians, while at the same time marking the passage of the millennium through numerology."

Weekday visitors to the abbey can watch him at work and once complete the piece will sit in the grass of the nave for two years.

The abbey itself dates back to the 13th century and was built by Richard, Earl of Cornwall, after he was saved from a storm at sea. It was formally dedicated in 1251, but earned its wealth and reputation as a site of pilgrimage when the monks were presented with a phial, purporting to contain a sample of holy blood. It was partly demolished in 1542 after Henry VIII's dissolution of the monasteries.