York Historic Environment Record

In August 2005 Northern Archaeological Associates were commissioned to undertake an archaeological watching brief during sewer repair works to the tunnelled Victorian sewer that runs below Micklegate Bar. Two trenches were excavated through previously undisturbed archaeological deposits, comprising road surfaces and road levelling layers, relating to this historic principal route-way into the city of York. The results from both trenches showed a clear stratified sequence of deposits and road surfaces from the Roman though to the post-medieval periods. The earliest identified deposits related to construction of a Roman road comprising a foundation layer of large cobbles, overlain by a compacted metalled surface layer of gravel in a red clay matrix. The identification of the main south-westerly road to Calcaria (Tadcaster) in this location, just outside the defences for the Colonia at Eboracum, supports the notion of the medieval Micklegate Bar being founded upon the site of the earlier Roman gateway in the defences. The Roman occupation layers were overlain a humic deposit, containing preserved organic material likely to have derived from an out-door dung heap or from flood debris. This deposit contained six seeds from the japanese-lantern plant (Physalis Alkegenki L), the earliest archaeological record of this species in northern England. Later medieval and post-medieval cobbled and metalled road surfaces were also recorded, some with the addition of waste industrial material for added durability. Documentary evidence records that the tunnelled sewer was probably constructed below Micklegate during extensive sanitation works that took place across the city on the 1890s. The brickbuilt sewer was seen to have been routed southwest beneath an archway cut through the defences to the north of Micklegate Bar, heading out toward the middle of Blossom Street.