WORK on a multi-million pound monastery in the North York Moors National Park will take about two years to complete.

The Conventus of Our Lady of Consolation, a community of Benedictine nuns, is selling its home for the past 134 years, Stanbrook Abbey, Worcester, with a price tag of £6m.

Sister Anna Brennan, of the Order, said it was hoped the proceeds from the sale of the abbey would cover the cost of the new monastery, in Wass, North Yorkshire.

The scheme has been given approval by the park's planning committee and the Office of Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott.

Sister Anna said: "We have just put Stanbrook on the market and had brochures printed and published."

She said details of the scheme had still to be approved by the National Park Authority, which could take several months in total.

She said: "We shall then go out to tender and we are told it will take about 15 months to build the new monastery."

The abbey, set in 21 acres in the Malvern Hills, has been put up for sale because the 24 nuns in the Order say they cannot afford to run it.

Roman Catholic nuns first moved to Stanbrook from Cambrai, in France, in the 18th Century, after the French Revolution.

They were released from prison and sent to England, where they persuaded a monk to pose as a country gentleman so that he could buy the abbey on their behalf.

The new convent will be in the shadow of the ruins of Byland Abbey.

Until it is built, the nuns plan to move to temporary accommodation.

The Prioress, Mother Joanna Jamieson, said: "Everything is so expensive and it is so very sad. A building that was designed for a monastic community is no longer user-friendly."