MANY parents of teenagers know all about bedrooms needing a good tidy-up, but how many would require a full-scale archaeological dig?

Such a search, more reminiscent of Time Team than Changing Rooms, is going on right now at an historic house in North Yorkshire.

Staff at Nunnington Hall knew they had to replace rotten and damaged floorboards in the west bedroom. But instead of vacuuming up the dust, archaeologist Mark Newman was brought in to painstakingly examine each minuscule find.

Property manager Simon Lee said it was amazing what they had been able to discover.

"When you lift the floorboards there's a cavity underneath, and usually that is cleaned out and everything is lost," he said.

"It's a precious opportunity to find out a little bit about the social history, what the rooms were used for and what people did."

Mr Lee said there were hoping to be able to display some of the finds for future visitors to see.

"We have found pieces of children's toys and lots of sewing needles and pins - they were near to the window presumably because that was where the best light was.

"There were also some playing cards and bits of glass, and so far Mark has also found a small thimble."

Updated: 12:10 Thursday, January 23, 2003