YEARS of research into Pickering's ancient Royal Deer Park have been written up by hand by farmer and historian Richard Harrison.

Blansby Park, north of the market town in the North York Moors National Park, has been owned by The Duchy of Lancaster for centuries.

Covering about 1400 acres, it was the hunting ground of the Plantagenet kings when they, and other nobility, stayed at Pickering Castle.

Mr Harrison said that in the early part of the 14th Century, the park had 1,300 deer and it was also a Royal stud.

It was part of the vast Pickering Forest, which stretched from Goathland south to Scarborough and across to Pickering, covering thousands of acres of what is now the North York Moors National Park.

Mr Harrison, whose research also includes the Ice and Bronze Ages in the Pickering area, said: "Until now, all the research and knowledge has been kept in my head, but at long last I've got down to writing it up."

Bradford University and the York Archaeological Trust are surveying the deer park's wealth of pre-historic evidence.

"Much of the archaeology of the park is in good condition because it has not suffered at the hands of cultivation for hundreds of years and as a result finds we have made were much less damaged," said Mr Harrison, who has farmed 500 acres of the park for more than 40 years.

Mr Harrison has found many items of Roman pottery and other artefacts while farming the area.