York Historic Environment Record

Report 3 of GPR survey Roman York Beneath the Streets Project 5 ha of the streets of York city centre were surveyed using a step-frequency GPR system, dragged along the street surface at low speed. This was the first large-scale trial of its kind in the UK focused on testing the observability of archaeological features in urban environments. which in theory meant that it should be good for capturing data from the surface down to 3m or more. The survey registered details about the road makeup, services, and utilities. Unfortunately, no identifiably Roman features were discovered. The problem was not caused by the density of modern utilities, but significant signal attenuation, with few features visible below about one meter. No archaeology was observed below this depth, even when the survey was above known archaeological features. This report is primarily of use for understanding methodological issues, from the archaeological point of view. Nonetheless, the data in the repository may be of use to anyone commissioning PAS 128 Utilities surveys in the streets in York city centre.