York Historic Environment Record

An archaeological evaluation was carried out by On-Site Archaeology Ltd on the site of a proposed new Music and Arts Building, at Bootham School, York, in May 2011. The site lies close to the Roman fortress and medieval city wall, close to the line of a major Roman road, in an area known to contain Roman burials. The evaluation comprised the hand excavation of a single trench, which measured 3m x 3m at the modern ground level. This was then stepped in to a small sondage to reveal natural deposits at a depth of 1.65m below the modern ground level. The natural was sealed by two thick deposits of agricultural or horticultural soil that contained a mixture of medieval and residual Roman pottery. These soil horizons suggest that the area has experience substantial reworking of early deposits during the medieval period. As a result any Roman archaeology that survives on the site is likely to take the form of cut features into the natural, truncated by medieval ploughing. Intact Roman stratigraphy is unlikely to have survived this plough truncation. The medieval soil horizons were sealed by a sequence of deposits and features dating to the post-medieval and early modern periods, which had then been cut by recent services.