Appendix 14
Here are just some of the visible remains of Roman York which can be easily seen today.
1. Outside the south door of York Minster at the statue of emperor Constantine the Great sitting regally, surveying his fortress. There is a descriptive plaque next to the statue which reads:
CONSTANTINE THE GREAT 274–337. Near this place Constantine was proclaimed Roman Emperor in 303. His recognition of the civil liberties of his Christian subjects, and his own conversion to the faith, established the religious foundations of Western Christendom.
The sculptor, Philip Jackson, was fastidious in his research on the clothing, seating and armour of the period. The result is a ‘fascinating medley of fact and conjecture’. The emperor gazes down at his broken sword, which forms the shape of a cross, a moving emblem of Constantine’s world-changing act of making Christianity a legal and (largely) tolerated religion of the hitherto predominantly pagan Roman Empire.
2. The Undercroft Museum is accessible from inside the minster. It features structural remains of the Roman fortress headquarters (principium) and parts of the First Cohort centurions’ quarters, along with one of the sewers serving the fortress. Entrance to the Undercroft Museum is through the west end of the minster. Remains of the Roman basilica building, at the north side of the principia, are visible in the undercroft.
3. While you are in the minster, take time to see St Stephen’s Chapel at the north-east corner beyond the choir; its terracotta panel is called The First Hour of the Crucifixion and was created by the ceramic artist George Tinworth. The relief shows early afternoon on Good Friday when the other two of the three crosses are just being erected. Roman soldiers are casting lots as to who should get Christ’s robes after his crucifixion and the same soldiers are shown dividing up his clothes. Note the Victorian moustaches sported by the soldiers and the little boy on the right who seems to be enjoying the Eucharist wine.
4. Once outside again head towards the 25ft column which formed part of the principia, and was discovered when the minster’s central tower was underpinned in the 1960s.
5. Bootham Bar overlies another gateway in the fortress – the porta principalis dextra – part of which is preserved in the floor of the modern building (currently a café) adjoining the bar. In the coffee house (Bean & Gone), you can see the lower courses of the fortress wall immediately next to the porta principalis dextra (i.e. the main gate on the right side) through a glass panel in the floor. This is a fragment of the foundations of the western curtain wall. The remains were first revealed and recorded in 1910 during building works on the site, but the wall was then concealed in a shallow basement for more than 100 years. Opposite, on the grassed area between the pavement and the car park, you can see another small section of the fortress wall. A plaque records that it was built under the emperor Constantius Chlorus in about AD 300.
Back over the road, under the stage in the Theatre Royal, there are the remains of a Roman well. Unfortunately, but for obvious reasons, you can only see this on one of the organised tours of the theatre.
6. One of the stones of the Multangular Tower in Museum Gardens is 21ft by 11ft wide and bears the legible inscription ‘Genio loci feliciter’: ‘good luck to the guardian spirit of this place’ (RIB 647). It was uncovered in 1702 when digging a cellar below the Black Swan Inn in Coney Street outside the south angle of the fortress and is now in the Yorkshire Museum (YORYM: 2007.6197).
7. Exit the Gardens and head down to the end of Lendal along Davygate and go into St Helen’s Square. Here, a slave market is said to have existed during the Roman occupation. Later, Bede tells us that Pope Gregory I (d. 604) admired English slaves, punning ‘non Angli sed angeli’: ‘they’re not Angles, but angels’.
The following may also be of interest:
Treasurer’s House
Behind the Chapter House at the minster. A Roman street, the via decumana, was excavated here under the cellar of the house in the 1960s, lending credence to stories about ghostly legionaries marching through.
Stonegate
Stonegate refers to the road leading to and from the Roman Porta Praetoria, a gate into the Roman garrison. The old Roman stone paving – which gives us the modern name – survives under the cobbles complete with the central gulley for the chariots’ skid wheels.
Streets (viae) and gates (portae) in Eboracum
Via principalis, main street – Petergate
Via praetoria, Stonegate
Via decumana, Chapter House Street
Porta pricipalis dextra – under Bootham Bar
Porta principalis sinistra – under King’s Square
Porta praetoria – under St Helen’s Square
Porta decumana – in the garden at Gray’s Court
Plaques celebrating Roman York are at Bootham Bar; Praetorian Gate, St Helen’s Square; the Roman Column; Stonegate; Petergate; Constantine the Great statue; Roman Wall in St Leonard’s Place, the Anglian Tower in Library Gardens.