Blue Bridge Lane
&
Fishergate House
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This document presents a Research Design (RD) for the study of the results of excavations at Blue Bridge Lane and Fishergate House. The purpose of the design is to identify studies and tasks likely to lead to publishable research of high current value.
The excavations have produced new information for three main periods: Roman, Early Medieval and Medieval. In each case we have added to knowledge about the developing form of the city of York over the first and second millennia AD. There are also potential rewards specific to each period: for the Roman period the first modern contact with a cremation cemetery beside the south road; for the early medieval period new light on the organisation of craft-working in the Anglian wic (or trading station), and for the Medieval period a new cemetery and new information about the Gilbertine Priory and its industries.
For each period, a brief account of the results is followed by an assessment of the research potential, and a list of the appropriate tasks needed to realise it. Bracketed names indicate the selected project specialists who will undertake the analyses.
The site lies on the south side of the Roman city near the confluence of the Ouse and the Foss, and adjacent to the craft-working zone (canabae). A north-south ditch encountered close to the modern line of Fishergate may have flanked a Roman road leading south out of the city along a ridge of the moraine; two parallel ditches running NW-SE towards the Ouse from the putative road suggest an adjoining track and the possible presence of a dock or mooring point during the Roman period. This is further proof, if any were needed, that the natural features of the site provide an ideal point for landing cargo from boats.
Five cremations were found close to the road (one at Blue Bridge Lane and four at Fishergate House). They belong to a wider cemetery area already encountered in the 19th century during the construction of some of Fishergate's grandest Victorian buildings (RCHME 1962). Beyond, a Roman ploughsoil was defined suggesting contemporary arable fields.
Aspects of economic activity, funerary practice and transport networks are not often evidenced within the same area in York, and as such the Roman period archaeology provides valuable evidence for the organisation of the Roman landscape on the outskirts of the city.
The cremations are significant as a group in themselves, since this is the first modern archaeological contact with the cemetery, using detailed excavation and recording techniques. The Blue Bridge Lane cremation demonstrates that the cemetery extended at least that far north. Further north still, excavations at 46-54 Fishergate by York Archaeological Trust (see below) made contact with Roman material. Although this is not extensively published, the assemblage includes vessels of late 1st to early 2nd century date, which may have arrived at the site not by manuring but as complete funerary urns or accompanying vessels. In contrast to both 46-54 Fishergate and Blue Bridge Lane, the four Fishergate House cremations in the new excavations to the south were found intact and largely undisturbed in a sealed cemetery-soil layer. Full osteological and zooarchaeological analysis will make an important contribution to the sparse osteological information that exists for early Roman burials in York.
Extensive contact with Anglian deposits mainly took the form of pits with rich assemblages. These features could be identified as forming part of the Anglian settlement of Eoforwic, a trading and production centre of the 7th to 9th century and an economic forerunner to the City of York. The settlement was first discovered by York Archaeological Trust at 46-54 Fishergate, and was excavated, studied and published during the 1980s and 1990s (Kemp 1996, O'Connor 1992, Rogers 1993, Mainman 1993). The conclusions published there are both endorsed and questioned by the new results.
Research on the Anglian settlement tends to focus on the nature of the socio-economic or 'proto-urban' function of the site, as reflected in the assemblages and their distribution. Integration of the new results with those from 46-54 Fishergate will provide a fresh model of Eoforwic which can then be compared with similar settlements known at Southampton, London, Ipswich and Norwich. Such comparisons should contribute directly to the understanding of, and latest debates about, the wics which are claimed as England's earliest towns (Anderton 1999, Hill and Cowie 2001). Fruitful analyses are promised in four main study-areas: determination of the physical extent of the Eoforwic settlement, mapping and organisation of activities within it, investigation of the intensity of use through time and studies of trade and craft-working.
Some indication of the original form of the Eoforwic settlement can be deduced from the Roman landscape, and in this respect the intact Roman cremations and their associated horizon are significant. The four Fishergate House cremations were found intact and largely undisturbed in a sealed layer which was overlain directly by post-medieval and later deposits associated with Fishergate House. There was little or no Anglian settlement (only one Anglian feature was present), so these undisturbed Roman burials mark an end, or at least an interruption, to the physical extent and layout of the later 'wic'. It thus seems possible that the settlement confined itself to a natural bowl that existed along the Ouse/Foss, focussing on a location where boats could draw up into the shallows of a beaching point.
Mapping the physical extent and potentially the buried topography of the settlement will allow a more accurate model for the limits of the settlement and its potential size to be reached. Once quantified, comparison with other similar sites will be possible, for example, as provisionally mapped, the settlement at York extends for an area of four hectares, or four football pitches, as compared with forty hectares of Early Medieval settlement contacted in Southampton, the equivalent of forty football pitches.
The features and assemblages provide pointers to the different activities carried out in each area, and thence of 'municipal' organisation, planning and maintenance. Excavation at 46-54 Fishergate had identified three main indicators of external planning and control: an eastern boundary ditch lacking synanthropic insects in its basal fills (Kemp 1996, 67), the maintenance of metalled routes through the area excavated and the supply of food to the inhabitants. The apparent absence of a formal ditched southern boundary, to accompany the eastern ditch identified by Kemp, raises questions about the planned and pre-determined nature of the settlement. The density of archaeology across the excavated areas appears to have been greater and more stratified including structures and metalled routes (46-54 Fishergate), presumably where the most intensive occupation had taken place; less dense and unstratified archaeology has been encountered towards the peripheral south (Fishergate House), much as one might expect from an organic rather than planned settlement. The lack of activity to the east of the eastern ditch at 46-54 Fishergate also equates with the line of modern Fishergate, which is probably a Roman route. The lack of activity to the east may be due to the road persisting in the landscape rather than a formal pre-determined layout imposed on the site prior to occupation.
No formal metalled routes or easily identifiable structures were present at Blue Bridge Lane or Fishergate House, and so 'municipal' maintenance will be hard to identify, although shared sequences of fills, backfills and silting will be sought amongst the complicated sequences contained in negative features at Blue Bridge Lane and Fishergate House.
By far the most persuasive indicator for artificial maintenance of the settlement is the zooarchaeological evidence from 46-54 Fishergate (O'Connor 1992). O'Connor found the settlement was provisioned, being supplied with live cattle and receiving jointed pork. Recent assessment concurs with O'Connor's conclusions, but has revealed slightly different species counts with caprovid numbers being greater, also being brought into the site on the hoof.
Coins and pottery provided the phasing for excavations at 46-54 Fishergate and it is anticipated that the coins and pottery recovered at Blue Bridge Lane and Fishergate House will provide a comparable chronology. In the new studies, the date bracket for settlement and the hiatus in the late eighth century proposed at 46-54 Fishergate (Kemp 1996, 83) will be tested by coin and pottery dates and a programme of targeted AMS radiocarbon dating.
Investigation of the range of crafts practised will help to identify the tradeable commodities produced at the site. Spatial analysis of artefacts should show whether craft-working was organised in specific zones. Such zones were not detected in the YAT excavations (Rogers 1993), but the addition of new data from a different area of the settlement hints that different areas were used preferentially for certain crafts. The increased numbers of caprovid bones identified in preliminary bone assessment, alongside artefactual evidence in the form of iron shears and needles, large numbers of loomweights, and the presence of spindlewhorls and a picker-cum-beater, may suggest an area designated for textile-working. It may be that an area of more specialised production has been contacted. Bone- and antler-working have also been identified, and small-scale glass and non-ferrous metal-working have been implied by occasional finds, but the complete lack or general paucity of other craft-working indicators requires further investigation. No direct evidence for non-ferrous metal- or glass-working has been encountered in recent excavation which is to be contrasted with evidence from 46-54 Fishergate where 37 crucibles used for glass-, bronze- and silver-working and fragments of gold wire, an ingot mould and slags were recovered (Rogers 1993). Thus the addition of Blue Bridge Lane and Fishergate House allows the distribution of crafts to be considered on a wider scale.
Trade links identified indicate direct or indirect contact with the Eifel region of Germany ('Niedermendig' lavastone), more broadly the Rhineland (preliminary source of glass), the Baltic (preliminary source of raw amber), and various places within mainland Britain and possibly Norway (suggested by the presence of native stone objects). Identification of the finds from Blue Bridge Lane and Fishergate House and amalgamated quantification of finds with those from 46-54 Fishergate House will allow comparison with the wealth of material from other 'wic' sites.
The end of Anglian occupation at the site is followed by another hiatus in occupation and the provisional reoccupation of the site is dated to the late 10th century. By the 11th century a timber church with cemetery had been established at 46-54 Fishergate, and the Gilbertine Priory with its church of St Andrew was established in the area in 1195. The new excavations made contact with part of the outer precinct of the Gilbertine Priory which included an industrial zone, and with a cemetery beyond the precinct which may have belonged to a so far unidentified church.
The date and nature of reoccupation at Fishergate House and Blue Bridge Lane, some way from the site of the early church, will allow a more accurate picture of the pre- and post-Conquest occupation of the suburb. The Medieval and later phases also promise useful results from analyses in three areas of study: new light on monastic industry, analysis of the new cemetery and the use and organisation of space within the Priory precinct.
The discovery of the remains of a pottery kiln, archaeomagnetically dated to the 14th century, and large amounts of wasters, indicates pottery and tile production at the periphery of the monastic site. The pottery belongs to the Humberware tradition and is highly significant to the general understanding of urban pottery production and more specifically to the ceramic history of York. A full catalogue of the products and fabrics of the kiln will be prioritised.
A total of 244 medieval inhumations was encountered in the grounds of Fishergate House. This is the first medieval cemetery to be excavated in the city on a large scale since St Helen's-on-the-Walls (cf Magilton 1980). Full osteological analysis of the human bone, including pathology, demography and spatial analysis is intended. The cemetery will be dated primarily by pottery and stratigraphy, although it is hoped that the University of Durham, where the bones are being curated long-term, will be successful in bidding for research grants for a full radio-carbon dating programme.
There are thought to be several lost churches in the area of Fishergate and documentary research is planned in order to understand the location of the burial ground and to identify a possible institution to which the undocumented cemetery belongs.
It is the urban context of St Andrew's which justifies further analysis. Many other institutions of the Gilbertine order have been the subject of investigation, but without exception the claustral remains have been favoured. The periphery of the monastic precinct has been contacted along the route of Blue Bridge Lane where it revealed itself to be an area given over the refuse disposal and latterly industrial activity. Aston (2000) asserts that the organisation of space within the monasteries of large orders stretched into all areas of the estate and this is a unique opportunity to explore the use of space in an urban Gilbertine precinct.
During the late medieval period, timber buildings have been identified which may be associated with rich food consumption, as suggested by preliminary zooarchaeological assessment. More importantly, the use of the periphery of the monastic precinct for refuse disposal may indicate that Blue Bridge Lane contained the food refuse which was lacking from earlier excavations of the claustral range. The zooarchaeological assessment detected rich and varied food refuse for the late medieval period; later the quality of food appears to be much poorer with a higher presence of scavengers in the form of crows, ravens, red kites and rats. These indicators, of a decline in the cleanliness of the surrounding environment and the poor quality of food, may be suggestive of a segregated secular occupation at the site associated with the investment in pottery production and light industry.
It is intended that spatial analysis of structures and associated features is undertaken to elucidate the use of space and the nature of activities being undertaken throughout the life of the Priory. These phases of activity will be securely dated by pottery. The associated finds and building materials originating from the Priory as rubbish will also be analysed and integrated with the material published by Kemp and Graves (1996, 2002).
A well-defined programme of research is proposed which will provide further understanding of the form and function of the southern area of the Roman, Anglian and Medieval city. York is of national significance in each of these periods. In addition, the study of the Anglian settlement has the power to address international issues, in that it can throw light on poorly understood political and economic strategies in the centuries between the fall of the Roman Empire and the rise of Catholic Europe.
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