York Historic Environment Record

An Archaeological Watching Brief was undertaken, by On-Site Archaeology on behalf of Harrison Construction Ltd, during the excavation of groundworks associated with the redevelopment of the Merchants Exchange building, Skeldergate, York. This was to fulfil a condition attached to planning permission for the development. The monitored groundworks generally comprised small scale trenches for temporary supports to adjacent buildings, services and engineering test pits. These trenches did not encounter any significant archaeological deposits. A larger area was exposed during the lifting of a 19th century cellar floor to assist the piling. As archaeological remains of medieval date were revealed in this area the remainder of the cellar floor was left in-situ. The medieval remains included a number of structural timbers, dump deposits and a cobble surface, which may have formed an early version of Skeldergate. Although these deposits were not excavated, a small number of mid 12th to mid 13th century pottery sherds were collected from the surface during cleaning an recording. Approximately one-third of the piles were monitored, but due to the methodology employed, provided no additional archaeological information.