Yorkshire Philosophical Society

Event Information

Excavations at Blossom Street and Roman settlement beyond the colonia
Joint lecture with York Archaeological Trust
Ian Milsted, Field Officer, York Archaeological Trust

Recent excavations at 28-40 Blossom Street revealed a complex sequence of buildings, dumps, burials and other forms of land use dating to the Roman period. These have shed new light on how the area outside the presumed area of the walled civilian settlement, or colonia, was utilised during Roman times, and this has implications for understanding the development of the colonia itself. The excavations have also resulted in a reappraisal of the road network identified by LP Wenham some 50 years ago.

Report
by Carole Smith
Excavation records in the Blossom Street area date from the 1950s to the present. They represent a challengingly confused picture of land-use changes – in particular the line of the Roman road into York from Tadcaster, which remains a mystery. A comparative analysis of these datasets is beginning to show a pattern of development from an agricultural landscape, to Roman roadside cemeteries with large and significant (but unrecorded) buildings, to the growth of a civilian settlement. Unrecorded discoveries, as well as gaps and losses in the records, frustrate analysis, while an 11th-century clearance truncated all further Roman archaeological record. The next layer marks the beginning of medieval ploughing, and the origin of the name Blossom (Ploughswain) Street.

Further detailed analysis of the records, of comparable records from elsewhere in the city as well as of other legionary fortresses, together with three-dimensional GIS modelling may help to interpret evidence found in the current excavation, a small trench measuring only 9 x 6 metres. Interesting interpretations are already emerging.

Sponsored by York Archaeological Trust