York Historic Environment Record

An archaeological evaluation was carried out by On-Site Archaeology at the site of the Former care home, Fordlands Road, York. This comprised the excavation of two trenches. The trenches were located within the footprint of a proposed new care home, in an area currently used as a car park. The evaluation was carried out to assist in the determination of a planning application to redevelopment the site. The southernmost trench (Trench2) revealed 20th century made ground down to a depth of 1m below the existing ground surface. The made ground was similar to material revealed in evaluation trenches excavated immediately to the east of the site in 1996. During that evaluation the made ground was interpreted as forming backfill of a rubbish tip, in use until c. 1950. Trench 2 appears to demonstrate that the rubbish tip extends into this part of the former care home site. The northern trench (Trench 1) revealed natural clay immediately below the make-up deposits for the current car park, presumed to have been deposited in the 1980s when the care home was constructed. There was no evidence for surviving subsoil deposits indicating that the surface of the natural was probably truncated during the car park construction. No archaeological features were present within the limits of the trench. However, the survival of the natural in this trench suggests that truncated, originally deep, archaeological features may still be present on the site. Based upon the results of this evaluation, and previous evaluations carried out in the surrounding area, there should be no archaeological reason to prevent planning permission being granted. As there remains a possibility that truncated archaeological features survive in those parts of the site that do not contain mid 20th century land fill, an archaeological watching brief should be maintained.