York Historic Environment Record

The topsoil strip revealed a surface scatter of Roman pottery in association with a large area of cobbles of varying sizes. A machine cut section through this deposit showed it to be the partially ploughed out remains of a road. Ploughing had spread the uppermost metalling to either side of the in-situ make up of the road and this disturbed material sealed two V shaped ditches to either side of the road. The ditch on the south-eastern side was cut slightly deeper than that on the north-west and contained a series of fills which were rich in organic material as well as containing a considerable amount of pottery. The poorly preserved remains of a leather shoe were present in the lower fill of this ditch. The road was aligned in a south-westerly / north-easterly direction. It is quite clear that this is a well constructed and important road of the Roman period, apparently linking York to the west, with Stamford Bridge to the east. The considerable amount of pottery and well preserved environmental deposits in the ditch fills may indicate that a settlement site lies close by. There was, however, no structural evidence other than the road metalling itself within the pipeline corridor. NMR Information: Monitoring of topsoil stripping for a water pipeline (see Event 1102949) revealed the disturbed surfaces and side ditches of the Roman road from York to Stamford Bridge. Finds from the ditches included a leather shoe and pottery of 4th century and possibly later date. RCHME Microfilm Index PRN: 6441 Britannia : a journal of Romano-British and kindred studies Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies 416 28/1997