York Historic Environment Record

The site lay above the line of the former street of Hungate, which originally ran down to the River Foss. Documentary research indicated that from the early 15th to the 17th century Hungate became a dumping ground for rubbish from the city, being designated the official city dump from 1524. Evidence for a considerable build-up of deposits resultant from this dumping has been seen on several archaeological excavations in the area. The dumping resulted in land adjacent to the river Foss being reclaimed. The new street of Stonebow was built in 1955, bisecting the original Hungate. A significant sequence of structures and occupation dating from the medieval period to the 20th century was excavated at Henly’s Garage. Residual pottery and artefacts within this sequence indicated the presence of Roman and Anglo-Scandinavian deposits on the site, although excavation was of insufficient depth to reach these earlier levels. The lower levels at the site exhibited good organic preservation. The earliest excavated deposits were dated to the 12th-13th century and pre-dated the road surfaces of Hungate. These 12th and 13th century deposits sloped markedly downwards from the west towards the south-east, and may represent an episode of large-scale levelling designed to raise the ground surface. The medieval line of Hungate ran across the site, and a succession of 14th-15th century cobbled road surfaces was excavated. A mixture of alluvial deposits and dumped material post-dated the medieval road surfaces at the site, showing that the area was subject to flooding at this stage. No post-medieval road surfaces of Hungate survived.