The Dartmoor Pony Heritage Trust unveiled its new donation cairn last week (January 26) after it suffered damage during an incident in which hundreds of pounds were stolen.

Two stonemasons, Max Macgregor and Tom Smith of Stone Face Construction, volunteered to rebuild the cairn and spent three days on the site completing the work.

Sue Greenaway, one of the charity’s trustees, said: ‘We are absolutely pleased with the work. They have done the job completely free of charge. We have a much stronger box and the whole cairn is stronger.

‘[Mr Macgregor and Mr Smith] got on well with everyone and made friends with the ponies. I don’t think they wanted to leave.’

Mr Macgregor and Mr Smith dismantled the cairn and replaced the donation box with a stronger model in an effort to prevent any repeat offence.

The stonemasons then rebuilt the feature with the original stones, but added granite blocks to the edges. They alsi placed a 17kg granite block at the top of the cairn and christened the new cairn with its first donation.

Ms Greenaway also sent out her thanks to two other local construction companies for providing the charity with granite blocks and sand and cement for the building of the cairn.

‘It’s really wonderful to get the cairn back up and running,’ said Ms Greenaway.

‘We thought about QR codes and things while the cairn was down but lots of people prefer cash. We even got some donations posted through our post box.’

The cairn will now be ready for use in time for the trust’s re-opening in the February half-term.

At the beginning of last month, the Dartmoor Pony Heritage Trust put out an appeal for money to replace the strongbox built into the cairn after it was discovered that the box had been forced open and the contents taken.

The Dartmoor Pony Heritage Trust said it would now consider emptying the box on a daily basis to prevent another such incident occurring.

The donation box funds go towards sourcing hay for the trust’s herd of semi-wild ponies, kept for educational purposes, and any visiting wild ponies which may need to stay at the centre temporarily.

The trusts works to protect the Dartmoor eco-system and the ponies that live on the moorland.