A RESEARCHER is to publish a book uncovering the hidden history of a Northern village's religious past.

For decades, tourists have gone to the beauty spot of Rosedale Abbey, near Pickering, in search of its abbey, but to no avail.

However, after three years of research, Duncan Herd, a churchwarden and a member of the parish church council, has discovered that there was not only a thriving priory at Rosedale, but its ten nuns were amazingly resourceful.

They ran 40 farms and six mills exporting wares to Italy.

Mr Herd said: "Initially, I thought they were ten little nuns who spent their time praying in the chapel.

"But far from it. They produced some of the finest wool in Europe and employed 70 people."

Now a book, Rosedale Abbey: The Story Of A Medieval Nuns' Priory 1154-1536, has been published and is already having to be reprinted because of the demand.

The proceeds have raised more than £2,000 for the upkeep of the village church of St Mary and St Laurence.

"There has been a lot of help from the villagers - and a lot of luck in our research," said Mr Hurd, who has found there were 23 nuns' priories in Yorkshire, with Rosedale's being one of the most successful.

Others he has traced in North Yorkshire were at Handale , Keldholme, Baysdale and Hutton.

"The new evidence we have found shows that, for the past 300 years, historians have under-estimated the size of Rosedale Priory Church," said Mr Herd.

The Cistercian priory was a small, but thriving religious community of nuns, lay brothers and sisters, farm workers and servants who, for 380 years, were self-sufficient, industrious and successful.

They also grew an extensive range of herbs for their infirmary.

They were said to drink 56 pints of beer a week because of the lack of drinking water.