A HAMPSHIRE archaeology graduate has scooped a university prize for her thesis, in which she discovered a lost Cluniac priory and church.

Hannah Simpson, pictured, 22, from Hedge End, was given the Jack Parsons prize for local studies research as she picked up her degree from Bournemouth University, where she achieved first class honours in her BSc archaeological and forensic sciences course.

Her undergraduate thesis studied the Cluniac monastery in the small parish of East Holme, Dorset.

It was founded around 1107 but fell into disrepair and was slowly forgotten and dismantled, and its exact location had been lost for more than 250 years until Hannah rediscovered it in 2008 using near surface geophysics.

The work won Hannah an academic scholarship for a postgraduate thesis, for which she is now researching and surveying the Roman villas of Dorset.

She said: “I am very proud that my hard work has been acknowledged.”