THE first national Armed Forces memorial carved purely from Portland Stone has been hailed a success at a royal dedication ceremony.

The £6 million stone circle measures 43 metres and has more than 16,500 engraved names of service personal killed on duty or by terrorist action since the Second World War.

Albion Stone supplied all the stone for the monument and had to quarry a specific area of Portland to make sure the finest memorial quality stone was used.

Managing director Michael Poultney and Portland quarry manager Mike Godden attended the ceremony in Alrewas, Staffordshire, along with thousands of family members of military personnel.

The Queen, the Duke of Edinburgh, the Prince of Wales and the Prime Minister joined the Archbishop of Canterbury on Friday to say prayers for the dead and then toured the memorial.

Mr Poultney said: "Seeing it all completed I was just amazed at how big it was and it really did look spectacular.

"It was a very moving service and although it was a hard job for us and we committed time and energy, it is nothing compared to the people who have given their lives for our country."

The design of the memorial was by Liam O'Conner and the impressive curved wall sits atop a six-metre-high earth mound in the form of a barrow or tumulus.

When Albion Stone was approached to provide the stone in April last year Mr Poultney admitted that he thought this would be impossible in the time-scale and said that even though it was a difficult task he is very proud of the work and the time it was completed in.

After the stone was quarried by Albion Stone the curved slabs were sent to Northern Ireland for the name engraving before being erected in the National Memorial Arboretum, which is the home of many other service-related memorials.

Mr Poultney added: "Several people came up to me almost in tears saying what a good job we had done on the memorial. A few people even came up to me and asked me to sign their programmes for them."

The memorial will open to visitors on October 29.