PRINCESS Anne chatted with craftsmen and children as she strolled around a wood and opened a new living classroom project yesterday.

The Princess Royal singled out 14-year-old Emily Tanner from Durweston Youth Club, who was part of a group making a shelter at Bonsley Wood, at Durweston, near Blandford, developed by the Dorset Coppice Group.

Emily said: "It was amazing when she came and spoke to me. She was asking if we had ever made anything like this before. It was really exciting because I haven't met royalty before."

The princess also took time to speak privately with Diana West, the widow of the Dorset Coppice Group member Frank West, who died of a brain tumour in January before he could see all his work come to fruition.

Mrs West, who planted a tree in memory of her husband next to a bench he made himself, said: "Frank absolutely adored coming up here and he would have been so proud to see this."

The group showing Princess Anne around the site included Pete Moors, chairman of the coppice group, MP Robert Walter and North Dorset District Council chairman Col Michael Oliver.

Lord Lieutenant Valerie Pitt-Rivers introduced members of the group, attended by Genevieve Corben, who was at her first event as this year's Lord Lieutenant's St John Ambulance cadet.

The Woodland Project and Living Classroom is an area of the wood where people can visit and learn about the many woodland skills and traditions still practised in Dorset, including coppicing, carving, charcoal making and thatching.

As a souvenir the Princess Royal was presented with a bouquet of flowers by six-year-old Georgia Meropoulos and a hand-carved walking stick made by 77-year-old Trevor Harries, of Shaftesbury, who has been making the sticks for 38 years.