His Royal Highness The Duke of Rothesay was on hand to open the Morphy Richards Engineering Education Centre on the estate where he met representatives from Morphy Richards, as well as students making use of the new facilities.

The new facility is designed to help schools across Ayrshire deliver their STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) based activities and excited youngsters from New Cumnock Primary were on hand to deliver a guided tour to the Prince.

The Duke of Rothesay also unveiled the commemorative plaque to mark the opening of the centre.

Officially opening the centre, Prince Charles said: “I just want to say how thrilled I am that so many of you could come this afternoon for the opening of this engineering centre here at Dumfries House. It really stems from a conversation I had with various people from the engineer and business industry sector at the Armed Forces Memorial Day in Edinburgh about four years ago. One of the things that concerned me, and I know many others, for quite some time is the lack of engineering skills. As a result of all the conversations which took place, something called the Scottish Engineering Group was born back in 2012.

“I can’t tell you how thrilled I am that Morphy Richards has been so generous in helping to set up this engineering centre. The point about this centre which is really exciting, I think, is not only is it helping to, we hope, infuse young people with ideas engineering, in due course. But it also has this engineering, as it where, flavour here which is going to be the only centre of its kind in Scotland and I hope that it will provide a particularly vital resource for teachers and pupils to promote the importance of engineering.” The Duke of Rothesay added: “All I can say is that I’m so delighted that Dumfries House has yet another really excellent education resource on its estate, providing further opportunities for heritage regeneration in East Ayrshire and indeed beyond.” The pupils from New Cumnock got to the opportunity to mingle with His Royal Highness as he made his way around the new centre and surrounding facilities as they children got involved in small engineering exercises.

Primary 7 pupil, Teigan Brown, said: “He was asking us questions about how we made a hoover. We’re making vacum cleaners and he said he was very impressed with it.” Primary 6 duo, Aidan Morrison and James Shaw, got a brief chat with the Prince. James said: “I’ve heard of Prince Charles but I had never met him or saw him and I’ve been to England before.” At the time of the Princes visit there was no sign of the new royal arrival as he sauntered around the new centre in the dreich conditions. He was set to make another visit to the estate to open the new indoor gym and climbing wall as the Chronicle went to print.

See next week’s edition for a picture special and report.