York Historic Environment Record

A watching brief was held in advance of building work which was to include the excavation of a lift shaft. The church of St Columba lies in a hollow, presumably man-made, and the room in which the auger hole was located has a floor level c. 2.50m below the level of adjacent Priory Street. Unless a massive dump of clean clay has been introduced to the area it must be reasonable to conclude that the clay encountered was the natural sub-soil and that any archaeological remains, apart perhaps from features cut into this sub-soil, have been destroyed by the construction of the church and the creation of the hollow.