York Historic Environment Record

Evidence for the presence of a late Iron-Age/Romano-British agricultural settlement. Several possible double gully enclosures and a shallow ring ditch suggests some kind of enclosure or building. Several large pit-like features were also excavated interpreted as watering holes for livestock. The grouping of these features suggest the exploitation of this spring-line has ancient origins. One of the waterholes contained a well-preserved wooden wattle structure of branch off-cuts and worked pieces of timber. The feature had silted up over time accumilating within the open feature. This particular waterhole went out of use during the Iron-Age/Romano-British transition period - no dating could be obtained for the earlier deposits. The other waterholes were in use within the LIA/RB phase. There was also potential evidence of industrial use as backfills to the south of the ring gully and associated ditch contained slag waste, quern-stone fragements and possible fragments of cruicble could suggest milling and metalworking activities in the vicinity. See the 2020 excavation report for full details. The wider geographic and chronological extent is unknown without further work; there is good potential for a continuation of this archaeological landscape and in particular for the preservation of organic material as the presence of locally waterlogged deposits could extend beyond the limit of this development to the east, west and potentially the north. The continuation of archaeology extending into the surrounding area further south is unknown as to the nature of the programme of works and extensive modern truncation in the form of the pre-existing hedgerows offered limited results on the south side of Wetherby Road.