Excavations in York, 1972–1973: First Interim Report

Abstract

SummaryThe first year's campaign of rescue excavations by York Archaeological Trust is described. A sewer and part of a substantial building, perhaps the baths, were located within the Roman legionary fortress, and the sequence of defensive ditches on the south-west front was examined. Extra-mural settlement near the fortress was also examined in two places. Four small trenches in the heart of Anglo-Scandinavian York revealed 10 m of deposits including a post-Roman sequence giving a stratified series of timber buildings with C14 dates, ceramics, and artefacts. Well-preserved biological materials revealed in detail the palaeoecology of the buildings and immediate area. The development of riverside properties in Skeldergate was investigated: the land between Skeldergate and the Ouse proved to have been a late medieval reclamation. Part of the medieval suburb of Newbiggin was examined outside Monk Bar. The Hospital of St. Mary in the Horsefair was found at Union Terrace, where a twelfth- or early thirteenth-century building was traced through various phases of alteration and addition for use as a Carmelite church, as a hospital, and finally as a school which survived until the seventeenth century.