From the architectural point of view, York is one of our finest historic towns, for an exceptionally large number of medieval buildings are still standing. This is due largely to the accidents of survival. At the height of the Middle Ages, York was the second town in the kingdom, but in the later Middle Ages, it suffered a severe decline. By the 16th century, it had fallen to being only the 15th largest town in the country, and later it declined still further. It was only with the coming of the railways in the 19th century that it began to revive. Thus post-medieval torpor led to the survival of the old medieval buildings, while the medieval walls – now the subject of a superb study by the Royal Commission – are still virtually complete.

Archaeologically, however, the very survival of the medieval buildings has meant that virtually nothing is known of the archaeological remains underneath. Roman York was a double settlement, the legionary fortress being complemented by the growth of the civilian colonia on the other side of the river. Yet until the excavations under the Minster, little was known of the interior layout of the fortress, while the interior of the colonia is still totally unknown. In Anglian and Viking times, York continued as the major town in the north of England, yet it is only casual finds that have revealed the wealth of underlying remains. Thus the [building of the] ring roads and increasing pace of casual redevelopment combine to offer an opportunity that must not be missed.

St Mary's Hospital

Excavation began promptly. Between January and May 1972, Steven Colls dug two sites, and then between June and September, more than 70 volunteers took part in the first major season of excavations. The principal site was that of St Mary's Hospital, one of the five medieval hospitals that will be destroyed by the ring road. It was situated just outside the northern apex of the town in the medieval suburb known as Horsefair. In the 19th century, it had been covered by a row of modest houses known as Union Terrace, which had already been destroyed to form a large temporary car park.

The story that was revealed is perhaps more typical than one might realise, for it is the story of a minor religious site in the Middle Ages. It began well before the foundation of the hospital, as a small church, otherwise unknown. Then around 1265, the site was acquired by the Carmelites, and it is possibly around this time that the church was lengthened to form one of the long narrow churches of the type beloved of the friars.

Then in 1314, the friars acquired a rather better site inside the town at Hungate, so their old site became a hospital to maintain six old and infirm chaplains, and in successive stages, the excavators found how better facilities were continually being added. At first, the end of the church was partitioned off to form cubicles for living accommodation. Later a new range was added, of which the latrines were the most conspicuous feature, while later still, the western end of the former church was demolished to make way for a new hall.

At the Dissolution it again suffered what was probably a typical fate – it was turned into a school and became St Peter's School, an institution which still survives. This remained here until 1644 when it was burned down in the siege of York, and the site remained open until houses were put across it in the 19th century, which have only just been removed.

Underlying the medieval layers were the well-preserved wooden buildings of the Roman extra-mural settlement. These were only sampled in deep trenches, and time and money ran out before they could be excavated. The site is not needed for the roadworks immediately, so the excavation have been back-filled and it is at present being used as a large open car park. If, however, future use should involve the removal of the Roman levels, these still remain to be excavated.

Skeldergate

There were other sites too. Down by the River Ouse, a substantial area of the river frontage was cleared in advance of a new office block in Skeldergate. Here a long section revealed the course of waterfront development. Instead of a gradual encroachment, it all proved to be the result of a single large-scale development. A document of 1305 provides the background.

Apparently, on the other side of the river the Friars Minor had built a new river wall, thus causing the river to flow strongly over the other side. The townsfolk were furious and complained to the king, and shortly after, permission came through for the townsfolk to embank their side of the river too; they could use money from murage for the purpose. A fairly large amount of money was directed into the river defences and clearly to good commercial effect, for the area subsequently developed as the Port of York. The next property down became the Cranegarth – the site of the common crane – and there was also a dock and a customs house.

Lloyds Bank, Pavement

But the site that holds the most significance for the future is that of Lloyds Bank, Pavement. The Roman fortress was built at the highest point of the spit of land between the Rivers Ouse and Foss, but the Vikings preferred to settle down by the river. It has long been realised that this lower ground lying outside the area of the Roman fort was the centre of at least the commercial part of the Viking town. Archaeologically it is doubly important in that, being low lying, and since the water level has been rising ever since Roman times, there has been a continual build up of water-logged material in this area, all well preserved.

Lloyds Bank, Pavement is right at the centre of this Viking area. Thus when the coffee house next door gave up the ghost and the bank took it over, proposing to put vaults underneath, archaeological excavation became vital. Lloyds Bank, rising nobly to the occasion, donated £2,000 to enable the unit to do the job properly. It was only possible to excavate in very limited trenches, and the pre-existing cellars had already removed the upper 3 metres (9.8 feet) of deposit, but there still remained 7 m (23 ft) of stratified water-logged deposits, going from the 12th- backwards. Only by borings at the bottom of their trenches were the excavators able to reach the bottom of the cultural layers.

The excavations revealed the remains of several houses. These were all aligned on the present street known as Pavement, thus showing that its course must be unchanged since Viking times. The excavated area did not include any single complete house; instead, there were parts of several houses which had been continuously built and rebuilt in layer after layer.

In the 8th and 9th centuries, the houses had planked floors and walls sometimes of planks and sometimes set on sill beams. Later a variety of techniques were used, mostly involving wattle and daub. One of the most important aspects of this site was that it provided the excavators with a stratified sequence of finds going from the virtually aceramic Middle Saxon layers, through a period when the so-called ‘York Ware' was in use, succeeded by a period of the use of Thetford types and ultimately of Stamford types.

Imports demonstrate York's role as a late Saxon trading centre, with soapstone bowls imported from Scandinavia, objects of amber and imported pink-painted pottery. Most importantly, there was a range of wooden materials, bowls, lids, tools, a lockcase and lock. There were also textiles of various degrees of fineness.

Environmental evidence

The most important results, however, came from the well-preserved environmental evidence. Whereas the archaeological cultural material gave the impression of a certain affluence – the imported soapstone bowls and piece of jewellery – the beetles and other environmental evidence told a very different story. The floors were composed of rushes, but instead of these being cleared out when dirty, fresh ones were laid on top, thus contributing to the constant rise in level. The house walls tended to collapse because they were being attacked by woodworm.

Many leather objects were also found in the Pavement houses. For most of the period, they appear to have been devoted not only to leather working, but also to leather preparation. Paul Buckland and his fellow environmentalists were puzzled by the numerous elderberries until the Leather Institute pointed out that these were used in the tanning process, an activity also suggested by the presence of insects associated with skins, and other materials used in curing leather. The hair and bristles removed in the defleshing process were thrown in a corner, which soon became a seething mass of maggots – the fly puparia and the hair still survive. Hens may have roosted in the building – or was the chicken dung also used in the leather processing? The whole floor was warm and damp with decayed organic matter, and the report on the beetles comments that they were mostly of the types usually associated with compost heaps. Here at last we have the truth about life in Viking England!

The sewers

But the site that really hit the headlines came by accident. One day an informant told the [York Archaeological] Trust that an underground tunnel had been found stretching away into the distance as far as he could see. It might have been a tall story had he not come from the very site to which they had long tried to get access but had been consistently refused by the developer, the Equitable Debenture and Assets Co. Ltd. That evening they went to look and – sure enough! – they soon realised that they had the most newsworthy discovery of all: the Roman sewers.

The instant publicity forced the developers to grant the archaeologists 48 hours in which to investigate. Investigation revealed something of their extent, and a further fortnight was gained while the architects redesigned the building to take account of new ‘obstacles'. The developers even offered to preserve the building remains – and some of the walls are still standing 3 m (9.8 ft) high – if the archaeologists would provide £100,000. Alas, archaeologists can rarely produce £100,000 on the spot, and so the walls were encased in chippings to await a more enlightened generation, A manhole was built in the street down which the privileged few can still visit the sewers.

In the frantic excavations, two teams were laid on. The YAT team concentrated on cleaning out the sewers, which were filled with debris to about two-thirds of their depth. Above ground, the excavations were carried out by Derek Phillips' team, who, having completed the excavations under York Minster, are now condemned to a three-year stint of report writing. They were released from their desks for a fortnight's parole, and set to work on the above-ground remains.

The site was situated just inside the legionary fortress, on the corner of Swinegate and Church Street. The walls belonged to a bath suite. Originally it was a cold plunge bath of a very considerable size, but later hypocausts were inserted to form a warm room. The sewers were also dug at this time, suggesting that the rebuilding formed part of a comprehensive bath complex.

The sewer is rather smaller than the photos suggest; it is barely 1.2 m (4 ft) high, so there is not enough room to stand up in it. It is not recommended for those with claustrophobia. It consists essentially of one long passage with short side passages leading to drain inlets. In one of these, one can look up and see a stone lavatory seat, still in position, deep underground.

The main passage was built of vast blocks of millstone grit, weighing up to 3.5 tons each. The roof was of flat slabs except for two places where it was arched, presumably because there was a load-bearing wall above. At the end, where it approached the edge of the fort, it turned a right angle and ran along under the intervallum road walk towards the main gate, where it presumably ran out and down to the River Foss.

At a later period, the main sewer was blocked just before it turned, and a secondary passage leads diagonally through to another sewer which then makes the right-angled turn to run behind the rampart. This diagonal passage was built in much smaller blocks of limestone ashlar, comparable to that of the 4th-century fortress walls. There was some evidence to suggest that originally there had been three sewers running parallel behind the rampart, though in the circumstances – they lie under the pavement of the modern street – it was not possible to elucidate the precise relationships.

This gave the excavators the break they had been hoping for; it was something spectacular, newsworthy and provided a solid success for the local authorities who had supported the unit loyally right from the beginning.

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