York Historic Environment Record

Limited excavation began in May 2003 of the full excavation of archaeological deposits in the car-park area. Repeated re-designs of the proposed building and its foundations meant that the initial excavations in the former car-park area were extended in order to mitigate the archaeological destruction caused by additional sub-floor features. These included general reductions in the contractors’ formation levels and the installation of temporary electricity cable ducts, a lift pit, pilecaps and groundbeams. Remedial archaeological work in the car-park area was finally completed in October 2004, by which time there had been at least seven additions and revisions to the original foundation layout. In addition to work in the former car-park area, the lift-pit and two escalator pits that had been agreed in the original project design were stratigraphically excavated by MAP staff during 2004 and 2005. A further two additional lift pits were also excavated, all these excavations were considerable deeper than originally expected due to the insertion of pilecaps . Archaeological excavations were finally completed in June 2005 and a total of c.550cubic metres had been excavated.