York Historic Environment Record

The assessment indicates that the site lies in an area of known Roman to medieval archaeological remains. An archaeological evaluation carried out on the site in 2009 revealed Roman structural remains at a height of 7.50m-8.00m AOD. The Roman structural sequence was truncated by shallow pits containing 11th-12th century pottery and sealed by substantial thicknesses of medieval dumps and 19th century demolition material. Excavations carried out in the 1980s in advance of the construction of the adjacent building, Roman House, revealed up to 7m depth of archaeological deposits, the most significant of which dated to the Roman period. The Roman deposits included evidence for timber and masonry buildings. These were overlain by medieval deposits suggestive of open ground. The top of the recorded medieval sequence of deposits lay at a depth of c.2.5m below the modern ground surface (below 9.00m AOD). Excavations for a hydrotherapy pool carried out in the adjacent hotel in 2009, recorded medieval structural remains at a height of c. 11.00m AOD. This significant difference in levels appears to reflect the much steeper slope down towards the river that existed in the medieval period. The current development proposal is for the conversion of Yorkshire House office block into a 124 bed hotel with 49 serviced hotel suites to the rear within a rear extension and an additional top floor. At this stage it is uncertain what the nature and scale of any below ground works will need to be. The scope of archaeological mitigation will be agreed with the City of York Council Archaeologist.