York Historic Environment Record

Geophysical survey at Tadcaster Road ahead of development. Undertaken follwing a DBA. The survey was dominated by responses associated with existing landfill, soil disturbances and objects / landscape features at surface level. There is a large area of magnetic noise which is likely to be associated with imported fill soils or construction disturbance in the west side of the survey. Elsewhere responses from ferrous objects or building with ferrous component in their construction are present around the survey area, with localised disturbances in the topsoil present in the southeast corner. There are also several isolated ferro-magnetic spikes arising from material in the topsoil horizon. All of this contributed to significant masking of lower magnitude responses from natural geological conditions or past land use/ archaeological responses. Those pre-modern features that have been identified in the survey are restricted to an area of well preserved ridge and furrow which is also visible in the surface topography. There is also a faint linear feature aligned on a diagonal axis across the ridge and furrow. This feature may be associated with fill soils from a ditch feature that underlies the ridge and furrow soil responses, but its isolation in relation to any other features of the type in the survey make it impossible to determine its origin.