York Historic Environment Record

Between 7th February and 16th March 2011 York Archaeological Trust maintained a periodic watching brief on ground-works associated with the building of a new care home in the grounds of the Nuffield Hospital, Haxby Road, York. The archaeological monitoring was commissioned by Primary Care Investments and followed a City of York Council Archaeological Scheme of Investigation (2005). During the cutting of the foundation trenches no archaeological finds or features pre-dating the 20th century were encountered. A considerable number of archaeological features, all of World War II era were uncovered. These were encountered fully across the network of foundation trenches excepting the northern-most wing of the new building. All these features were related to air raid shelters, the long axes of which were aligned north – south. The shelters were seen to follow a standard pattern of a long narrow chamber with an access point at one end, this being aligned at 90 degrees to the main body of the shelter. Only parts of these shelters were seen, namely those parts that occurred within the lines of the foundation trenches. Consequently, certain shelters were seen in a number of narrow cuttings, others only within one foundation cutting. As far as could be ascertained there were 11 shelters within the footprint of the building. The basal parts of the shelters occurred at a depth generally of around 1.45m below the surface stripped level, which approximates with around 1.8m below the former car-park surface level.