A LOCAL stonemason has taken on the task of repairing Thornthwaite Beacon, a 14ft high summit cairn on High Street Ridge, saving it from potential collapse.

Dave Birkett took on the work to repair the beacon believed to be a 'Roman signalling station'. 

The cairn sits at the southern end of High Street, a prehistoric fell-top road over 2,000 years old.

In a social media post by the National Trust Lake District, they said: "No one knows exactly when the cairn was built but it’s believed that it could originally have been the site of a Roman signalling station, or possibly used to signal the approach of invading Scottish raiders.

READ MORE: 5 of your favourite National Trust sites in Cumbria

"The beacon had started to loosen at the top which could’ve proved dangerous for walkers sheltering against the nearby wall.

"But this is also about preserving a key historic feature of the Lakeland landscape, on a good day you can see it all the way from Ambleside Roman Fort which really gets us thinking about how it has been used in the past.

"This work was kindly funded by the Thompson Fund, which makes payments towards walling projects of significant cultural value," they said.