2005–06 has seen projects familiar from previous annual reports coming to fruition, and the ground laid for the development of future research.

The assessment of the archaeological archive from York Minster, approved for funding by English Heritage in January 2005, is now drawing to a close. The assessment has, for the first time, allowed the archaeological evidence for the construction and use of successive rebuildings of the cathedral between the late eleventh and fifteenth centuries to be related to the building as it stands today. Working in close liaison with architectural historians from the University of York, YAT researchers have created a comprehensive computer model of the recorded archaeology under the floor of the Minster, and made a major contribution to the accurate reconstructions of the ‘lost’ cathedral churches of Archbishops Thomas of Bayeux (c.1070) and Roger of Pont-l’Eveque (c.1154), the latter emerging as a candidate for the earliest cathedral in England built in the Gothic style. At the same time, other YAT researchers have studied the important group of medieval burials excavated from within and around the Minster, to evaluate their potential for future research. Although a significant milestone, this is very far from being the end of YAT’s involvement in the York Minster project. Towards the end of this financial year proposals are being developed for a full programme of research and analysis of the structural and archaeological evidence, intended to lead to the definitive publication of the eleventh- and twelfth-century cathedrals, a volume which will be of international interest and significance.

Also at the end of the financial year English Heritage approved funding for a second stage of the Vale of York project, supported from the Aggregates Levy Sustainability Fund. This will allow the Trust to make available to a wide academic, professional, popular and school audience the results of its research into the archaeology of the Vale since 2002, in the form of technical documentation, academic overviews, and educational resources including a project website, all drawing on the wide range of archaeological and related information held by the Trust in digital form within a Geographic Information System (GIS).

Finally, we appear close to obtaining further support from English Heritage, a notable and generous supporter of Trust research and publication over many years, in this case for a project aimed at exploring the potential of existing data from York excavations in understanding the dynamics of urban development and change across the first millennium AD. Entitled Towns in Transition AD 1 – 1000: the Case of York, it is hoped that, in addition to generating interesting results in its own right, it will serve as a case study and model for the development of similar approaches to the synthesis and interpretation of archaeological evidence from other historic towns in the United Kingdom.

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