York Minster Precinct: Rediscovering lost palaces

Speaker: John Creighton

n 2023, a small group of archaeologists were trying to uncover the evidence for Roman York beneath the streets which often got second billing to the city’s Viking heritage. As part of that work they wanted to see if ground penetrating radar could see deep below the surface anywhere within the city that wasn’t built-up. Dean’s Park and the Minster Precinct, along with the Museum Gardens, were obvious targets, and they didn’t disappoint – but they certainly surprised.

Archaeologist John Creighton will take you on a journey unravelling a puzzle, gradually going back in time as layers of signals from the radar survey are peeled back, looking at old maps, plans and watercolours of the city, to try to understand exactly what the team were looking at.

Through the journey you’ll develop a strong sense of space for the changing uses of what is now Dean’s Park and the Deanery Gardens. These results have helped retell the story of the Precinct’s evolution, from its legionary origins to the St Edward’s Minster (no they didn’t find it – or at least they don’t think they did).

You’ll also see the development of the 12th to 13th-century Archepiscopal palace, which is often dismissed as short lived once the alternative residence at Bishopthorpe was acquired in 1241. As it happens, researchers now think its scale and arrangement was just as impressive as its counterparts in Canterbury and elsewhere. Discover the joy of teasing apart its subsequent history as its ruins were incorporated into a massive real-estate property development under Sir Arthur Ingram. Appointed Secretary of the Council of the North, he created the grandly titled York Palace to try and rival King’s Manor. It was in Ingram’s house that Charles I resided in 1642 during the months running up the outbreak of the English Civil War. Hear how that too fell to dust and crumbled, with the shells of buildings used as Assembly Rooms, Theatres and an indoor riding school for the Dragoons until the Victorian era when the church regained the property and transformed it into the Dean’s Park we know today.

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Host or Publisher York Festival of Ideas