THE hulking ruin of Rievaulx Abbey, one of the jewels of the North York Moors, has an air of secrecy.

Driving down into the steep, misty valley where it lies, with wooded hills rising up on all sides, the feeling one gets is that of discovering something hidden.

Now the abbey, which is owned and managed by English Heritage, is to spill some of those secrets, with the creation of a new museum collection and visitor centre to be opened on May 28.

The current museum space has been transformed, opened out and modernised, with new collections and a new viewing window which will invite the abbey in.

Susan Harrison, curator at English Heritage, said it will be quite "gallery-like", with emphasis on the objects and what they tell us.

"We will tell the story of when the first 12 monks travelled to Rievaulx with their abbot and established the site in 1132, right the way through to the Suppression and the post-monastic use of the site," she said.

It's a story of change - sometimes gradual, sometimes sudden and turbulent. The seclusion and tranquility of this Rye valley would not provide protection for the Cistercian monks who lived here, from the forces of politics.

The building says everything. "What you had at Rievaulx is a massive number of monks living at the site," Ms Harrison said. "Something like 650 in the 12th century. And by the 14th century you have a massive decline following the Black Death and things like that. Then you have a burgeoning again of the population, and you have gradual change of the architecture to reflect that."

Stone pieces from the abbey will feature in the museum, from quirky medieval corbels and mullions to a stone arch. Other pieces are evocative of the violence of the Dissolution, such as the shards of a shattered stained-glass window.

Ms Harrison said there will be new screen printed captions for each object. What's her favourite piece? "I get fired up about each different object at different times. I think there are certain objects that tell a lot of stories within them.

"So something like the lead fother - the half-tonne ingot of lead stamped with the King's stamp - has an immediacy to it. It's one of four that were found in the 1920s and it is basically the condensing of this monastery, this fantastic institution, stripped down, and being made into monetary bars for the King's gain."

This was 1538, when Henry dismantled the monasteries. Some have said this was amid the monks' descent into hedonism and debauchery, but more recent scholarship sees this late English monasticism in a more positive light, Ms Harrison says. "The perception is that the Cistercians lost their way and lost their ideal, when in fact King Henry VIII wanted to gain political power and had economic motives to close the monasteries down.

"He sent his commissioners out to reflect on the behaviour of the monasteries and in some instances, yes, there were recorded misdemeanours and things like that, but on the whole what comes across from the evidence is that the even in the 16th century, at the time of these enquiries, they were still leading a very pious, reflective lifestyle, that had kept up to some extent with the modern times."

Truth is the daughter of time, and all that.

Ms Harrison added: "One of the most exciting things is to be able to showcase the collections that were originally dug up from Rievaulx Abbey actually on display at Rievaulx in a new way, with new interpretation and lots of background research about each thing.

"There will be a direct link that people can really get to grips with to understand the connection between the collections and the site, and vice versa."

As well as the museum there will be a new and improved audio tour people can take with them when exploring the ruins, and a new, extended visitor centre with a larger tearoom, upgraded facilities and a sweeping view up towards the abbey itself.

The new and upgraded buildings are open from May 28, though the Abbey can still be visited in the meantime. See english-heritage.org.uk for details.