York Historic Environment Record

WB during emergency sewer works. WB carried out under Operations Notice. A range of artefacts were recovered from the excavation, including animal bone, Roman and medieval pottery, ceramic building material and slag. Unfortunately, due to the constraints of excavation all of the artefacts were recovered during the mechanical and hand excavation carried out by the Yorkshire Water engineers, and as such could not be attributed to specific deposits or features. However, the artefacts do provide a flavour of past activity along Tanner Row. The deepest and earliest deposits encountered were present approximately 1.9m below ground level (BGL). The high stone and cobble content of these deposits and their extent, covering much of the trench base, suggest that they were a component of a former street. A north-east/south-west aligned limestone and cobble feature may have been part of a structure fronting onto the south-east side of the street. The alignment of this structure deviates at this point a little further eastward than the modern street. A second structural feature, which appeared to be a wall or wall foundation, is more problematic. The stonework is clearly laid out on a north-south axis, cutting into and across what appears to be the make-up of a former street. This structure may also have truncated the north-east end of the other wall although the relationship between the two features was obscured. The north-south aligned wall is however, more solidly built suggesting a later date than the other possible wall. The depth below current ground level of the structural features is similar to remains of 13th or 14th century buildings encountered at 5 Rougier Street (Macnab 1999). Those remains were also found at approximately 2m BGL and although thought to have fronted onto Tanner Street, there location was only around 30m to the north-west.