York Historic Environment Record

South-East Gate (porta principalis sinistra). Under King's Square (N.G. 60445197). Excavated in 1854. Yorkshire Gazette, 12 August 1854; YPS Procs. 1 (1847–54), 282; CIL, VII, 241; I. A. Richmond, York, Sheldon Memorial Lecture (1959), 2, 5.

Extensive stone remains were discovered in 1854 in sewer excavations 26 ft. or 28 ft. deep at the crossroads on the N. side of King's Square; they included a magnesian limestone dedication tablet (see Inscriptions etc., No. 1. Plate 41) recording building by the Ninth Legion under Trajan in A.D. 107–8, and the reading has now been restored to include the word 'portam' (Richmond, op. cit.). The tablet was found 'in King's Square near the house which stands at the corner of the square and Goodramgate and within a few yards of the line of the Roman wall'. (fn. 26) All were thus found within the line of the Roman wall and for that reason the usual explanation for the great depth at which they lay, that they had fallen into the fortress ditch, is not feasible. An alternative explanation is that they had been reused in the foundations of a later gate.

An Inventory of the Historical Monuments in City of York, Volume 1, Eburacum, Roman York. Originally published by Her Majesty's Stationery Office, London, 1962.

NMR Information

An inventory of the historical monuments in the City of York. Volume I: Eburacum: Roman York
2 copies. 1962 Royal Commission on Historical Monuments, England 35

Related Events
635618 Excavation KINGS SQUARE

NMR, NMR data (Unassigned). SYO2214.

YAT, 1996, The Archaeology of York Vol 3 The Legionary Fortress, p220 (Serial). SYO1764.

Eastern gate of the Roman legionary fortress. Located at the end of Low Petergate start of Kings Sqaure. Few details known but the base course of the north-west wall of the south-west guardhouse was recorded during works at King's Square in 1990.