York Historic Environment Record

Burial vault under No. 104 The Mount (N.G. 59465117), discovered in 1807 in building the house. The entrance is normally bricked up, but access was possible in 1955. This rectangular vaulted tomb-chamber has its major axis from N.W. to S.E., at right angles to Road 10. Modern ground-level is 3 ft. above the crown of the vault and most of the chamber was probably always underground. Internal dimensions are 8 ft. 2 ins. by 5 ft. 2 ins., the maximum height 6¼ ft., and the vault springs at a height of 4 ft. The walls, 1½ ft. thick, are of roughly coursed oolitic limestone, both dressed and rubble, plastered internally. The vault is turned in tiles set in a 3-inch layer of hard mortar which also covers the extrados. The mortar extruded on the intrados bears the impress of a shuttering of overlapping planks, which were left in position after the vault was finished; and, since the plastering on the end wall returns in one or two places, it is probable that the entire underside of the planks was plastered over.

The original entrance, now much enlarged, was 3¼ ft. high and 2½ ft. wide with threshold 2 ft. above the floor of the chamber and made, like the lintel, from a single limestone slab; after the burial it was walled up and the blocking was still in position when the vault was found. The height of the threshold was probably related to the top of the open coffin, which lay 4 ins. below it, in a convenient position for passing the body into its restingplace. The coffin, measuring 7 ft. 2 ins. by 3 ft. by 1¾ ft. high, occupies most of the chamber, and, being too large to pass through the manhole, must have been placed in position before the chamber was finished. It is of gritstone and an unusual feature is a step inside to serve as a pillow; the lid is a single flagstone, 2 ins. thick, as long as the coffin but 3 ins. narrower. The skeleton within, now much disturbed, is that of an adult; at its head were two glass phials, one found broken, the other complete and now (H. 43) in the Yorkshire Museum (Archaeologia, XVI (1812), 340, pl. xlvii; York Chronicle, 20 Aug. 1807; G. Benson, York I, 19, fig. 11).

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. pp 67-110

RCHME, 1962, Inventory of the Historical Monuments in the City of York, Volume 1 Eboracum (Bibliographic reference). SYO62.