York Historic Environment Record

A backfilled cellar was revealed towards the southern end of the site. This was emptied and backfilled with stone. Its east wall was later exposed along the face of a ground beam trench. The whole site was reduced by c.0.30m before the excavation of the ground beam trenches. These were excavated by machine and finished by hand. The trenches varied in depth from c.0.50m to c.1.00m and in width from c.1.00m to c.1.70m.The excavation along the base of the gable end of No. 43 Gillygate exposed a four stepped courses of brick foundation extending to a depth of c.0.50m BGL. The foundations of No. 47 Gillygate were not exposed fully although a concrete raft was cut through at ground level and various shallow brick piers were exposed. The deposits removed in a 10m wide strip alongside the pavement consisted of modern dump/levelling deposits and cellar backfill associated with previous buildings fronting on to Gillygate. The deposits beyond this strip and behind the building line along Gillygate were of a different nature consisting of unstratified dark grey friable clayey loams with occasional small pebbles and charcoal fragments with hardly any modern intrusions. No archaeological remains were encountered in any of these excavations. A small machine dug trial hole to the rear of the site confirmed that these dark grey clayey loams continued down to a depth of at least 1.50m BGL with little sign of any change.