York Historic Environment Record

The monitoring of the removal of a large oil tank was undertaken by On-Site Archaeology on 2nd November 2015 at land at the rear of 31 Walmgate. The removal of the tank necessitated the excavation of a 2m by 3m sized trench (numbered Trench 4 to differentiate it from evaluation and excavation trenches carried out in 2014) to a maximum depth of 1.9m. Apart from the modern tarmac ground surface and the structures associated with the tank two other deposits were observed. Both of these deposits consisted of dark blackish grey clayey loamy silt. The lower had a greenish tinge and contained more charcoal; the upper had inclusions of demolition material such as stone, CBM and mortar. Both layers were approximately 0.6m in depth. Natural was not reached within this trench; however, it was found to be 0.1m below the maximum depth of the trench in Borehole 2, which was located immediately to the southeast of the trench. Also on 2nd November 2015 a borehole survey was monitored here. Four boreholes were sunk across the site. No archaeological deposits or features were observed within the borehole cores. Natural was found at 1.6m BGL in Borehole 1, at 2m BGL in Borehole 2, at 3m BGL in Borehole 2 and at 4.7m BGL in Borehole 4. These results show the sharp slope of the natural from the Walmgate/ northeast end of the site to the Piccadilly/ southwest end of site by nearly 3m in depth.