THE largest tannery ever discovered at a monastery in Britain has been found by archaeologists at the World Heritage Site at Fountains Abbey revealing it's ancient industrial importance alongside it's religious standing.

The remarkable find showed just how extensive the tannery was with two huge stone buildings over 50 feet wide and one over 100 feet long, with lined pits and tanks. The Abbey, near Ripon in North Yorkshire is run by the National Trust and dates back nearly 900 years.

The discovery also emphasises the connection between the Cistercian monks and the 'separate but equal' lay brothers who did the work supporting the abbey through farming, mining, sheep and cattle rearing, and quarrying, making it one of the richest communities in the country.

National Trust archaeologist Mark Newman said tanning was a vital part of the abbey economy which owned and managed huge herds. Animal hides would be de-haired and cured to make leather for clothing, belts, bedding, book bindings and parchment for reproducing religious texts by monastic scribes.

He added: "The sheer scale of this discovery, and where it is sited close to the rest of the abbey community, has surprised us. A tannery of this size reveals an operation on an industrial scale, meeting the needs for leather and other processed animal skins for the community of hundreds of people in the growing monastic community.

"Also, given the noise, activity and stench that emanated from a tannery, we previously thought that it would have been sited further away from the monks and their worship. We see now that the tannery was much closer and a far cry from the idea of a quiet, tranquil abbey community.

"Fountains is today an oasis of tranquillity but in twelfth and thirteenth centuries in particular, it was as busy and industrialised a piece of landscape as you would have found anywhere in Britain. The bulk of the abbey’s needs for food processing and working raw materials took place in structures set around the wider precinct. "

The exact size of the tannery which was mapped out through ground penetrating radar, was discovered with the help of the University of Bradford, Mala UK, Geoscan Research and Magnitude Surveys. Together they have traced previously unknown monastic buildings which fill the whole width of the valley floor.

Mark Newman added: "The scale of the operations we’ve discovered here really takes one aback, but it all fits the bigger picture. The Cistercians and especially at Fountains were pioneering farmers and land managers on an industrial scale. They had to be, to support the enormous religious community that rapidly built up and the vast building projects they undertook, in praise of God.

"The lay brothers and the tannery were central to the whole monastic mission which was to 'grow communities of monks capable of leaving to form new monasteries across the North and even into Norway."

The Abbey was closed in 1539 after Henry V111 ordered the Dissolution of all Monasteries.