York Historic Environment Record

Wessex Archaeology was commissioned by CgMs Consulting to carry out an archaeological watching brief during groundworks in advance of proposed development at 20 Bishophill, York. The site is located within a very high density of listed buildings and within a Conservation Area, 10m to the east of the scheduled medieval City Walls of York. The watching brief comprised the monitoring of the drilling of five geotechnical boreholes by means of a dart windowless 150-70mm drill to a depth of 5m. The five boreholes displayed a similar sequence of deposits and depth of natural and no dating evidence was recovered. However, the deposit sequence was indicative of natural sandy clay surviving at 2m-3m below ground level (c. 17.5m aOD), and it was overlain by a 0.3m to 1.2m thick possible buried soil horizon or fill of cut features in boreholes 3 and 5. Wholesale landscaping associated with the current buildings and demolition of earlier terrace housing was evident in all the boreholes to at least 2m below existing ground level. Given the limited sequence of deposits exposed during the borehole survey it is possible that features of archaeological significance may survive elsewhere on the site.