York Historic Environment Record

Bachelor Hill is a small wooded hill just over 100 feet above O.D., situated east of Askham Lane in the first field after the fork with Grange Lane, Acomb. The finding here of small shards of Roman pottery and fragments of human bone, together with the form of the hill, led Mr. T. P. Cooper to put forward the suggestion that this was a Roman burial mound. A series of trial trenches, to test this hypothesis, were dug on October 12th and November 5th, 1932, by boys from Bootham School, York, under Philip Corder. These proved that the mound was of natural formation, consisting of clean yellow sand and glacial gravel and clay, undisturbed sand being found from about a foot from the surface in most places. The tumulus-like appearance of the mound was apparently due to ploughing round it, when the trees of the plantation had been first planted, buried rabbit-wire being found on all sides of the mound at the edge of the apparent tumulus. No explanation was forthcoming of the presence of the small fragments of Roman pottery on the surface, nor of the human bones. Nothing was found to connect these finds, though the bones are certainly ancient. Possibly interment may have taken place on the mound in Roman times, but no evidence of this was provided by the seven trenches dug. It is quite certain that the mound itself is not artificial. All the finds were at or near the surface, and they cannot be said even to prove Roman occupation in the neighbourhood, and may have been brought from elsewhere. The finds (other than mediaeval or modern) consist of one small shard of hard grey ware, one of soft grey ware, three shards of Castor ware, a rim in smooth buff ware, a flat, circular bone bead, 1/8 in. thick, 3 ins. in diameter; fragments of two skulls and a human fibula.