Historic Scotland is celebrating Scottish Apprenticeship Week 2012 with a demonstration of traditional building skills at Edinburgh Castle.

Launched today by the Cabinet Secretary for Culture and External Affairs, Fiona Hyslop, the event is run in partnership with Construction Skills, Telford College, The National Federation of Roofing Contractors, and the Stone Federation of Great Britain.

Historic Scotland, one of the nation's biggest employer of stone-masonry apprentices, is one of 12,000 organisations helping to train 34,000 people around the country.

Running from May 21st to 25th, the event will showcase the work of apprentices to Castle visitors through demonstrations of stone-masonry and roofing.

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Ms Hyslop said: "Apprentices working in the traditional skills sector are contributing to the future of Scotland’s historic environment, which adds more than £2.3 billion to the Scottish economy annually and is a key factor in ensuring sustained economic growth.

"Traditional buildings form a major part of Scotland's historic environment, and it is important we retain and increase the quality of these building skills to maintain our built heritage asset".

With 400,000 traditionally constructed buildings in Scotland, the work carried out by the traditional construction sector is of significant importance to their survival.

Ms Hyslop added: "Historic Scotland is driving the traditional skills agenda with vigour, in recognition of the importance of sustaining these skills for existing buildings. Traditional forms of materials and construction can also tell us much about building the sustainable properties of the future. This event is a great showcase for the work that Historic Scotland and the wider sector does in caring for our traditional buildings."

(Hmc)