Eboracum: Roman York
York was founded in AD 71 by the Romans and named Eboracum. Eboracum means “yew tree place”. It was originally a fortress, and later a town sprung up around the fortress. The fortress was mainly intended to protect against the Scots to the north. There were walls around the fortress and town, which are, for the most part, still the foundations of the current medieval walls. However, any remains that exist along Parliament Street, one of the main streets in the downtown core, are long buried beneath the current streets. York had a strong military presence but also became a bustling town, complete with a fairly significant bathhouse.
While walking the current walls surrounding the original City, you are literally walking above the existing Roman wall remains, though you can’t see them beneath the grassy ramparts. There are plenty of little plaques on the wall walking surface to let you know where the original Roman gate entrances into the City were located, as well as a full diagram showing the original fortress town and walls. You can also see the remains of one of the Roman tower bases that extended out from the walls while you’re walking the current medieval walls. It’s amazing to think of how much work and effort was put in to build these stone walls around the perimeter of the town and the fortress town itself.
York was incredibly important to the Romans. Considered the Roman capital of the north (London was the capital of the south), various sources around York state that the Romans intended for York to become its main capital. But England was abandoned as Roman troops were recalled during the collapse of the Roman Empire and that never quite happened.
While we haven’t looked into whether it was intended to become the main capital of Britannia or if that’s wishful thinking on the part of York people, it clearly was a very important town to the Romans. Constantine the Great was even proclaimed Emperor in York, where he was staying at the time he took over the said role. There is even a statue of him there today. Additionally, two Roman emperors died while they were in York and many emperors visited York.
In the centre of York’s core, you will find an old, quaint pub. I mean, there are at least four pubs on every block. So that’s not saying much. But this one is unique for the extensive Roman bath remains found below the pub. When we went here on one of our original visits, they told us that they found these remains as they were digging below the pub to create more cellar storage space. Instead, they found unknown historic Roman bath remains. Didn’t help with their cellar storage, but at least they were able to create a small museum in their basement instead! I love the idea of the Roman spa experiences and would totally love to see a revival of them so I could visit and pamper myself in a more social way than a typical spa experience of today.
The girls loved walking through this museum and tried to convince us to stay and watch a full 90-minute video on the history of Eboracum. We did stay for about 25 minutes of the video, which was fascinating, but we had other plans and unfortunately couldn’t watch the full 90-minute video. These two girls are sponges and love learning about history. While they aren’t that interested in TV for the most part and tell us it’s “boring”, put on a history documentary and they can’t get enough!
In the area of the current York Minster, they did excavations in the past. There were various Roman remains uncovered, including a significant length of one of the Roman columns. Near the Minster is the York Museum Gardens, where you can see the remains of walls, the bottom section being from original Roman times. Subsequent eras added height to these walls, which makes it fascinating to see the full height of them. There are also various Roman caskets throughout the museum gardens, many of which have been repurposed to hold flowers and plants. At one point, Katia asked if she could climb in one and lie down in it to see what it was like. She’s an interesting child!
At one of our favourite museums, an archaeological museum, we got to do a hands-on dig of a recreation of an actual Roman dig site in York. The girls loved excavating and exposing the various Roman treasures, including a little horde of silver coins that had been buried beneath the floor next to the fireplace. The family’s literal buried treasure!
It’s an interesting conundrum in York. There is so much exposed medieval history that is visible at street level. But there is likely just as much buried Roman history below the city. There’s no way to truly uncover the full extent of this majestic history without compromising the medieval history. But I can’t help but think of all the buried treasures they have deep below the surface of York, waiting to be discovered in the future.