City of dreams

TIME travellers who journey back 1,000 years to the building of New Jorvik could find themselves in for a bit of a shock. The Jorvik Centre's new time machine will aim to transport people back to 975AD, a time when a handsome new Viking city was growing out of the foundations of the old Jorvik.

But a deliberate glitch built into the system means travellers might go back further than they bargained for.

"There is a risk that you may go as far back as 866," jokes Richard Kemp, director of attractions at the York Archaeological Trust. "We're still working on the time technology!"

If you do end up going as far back as 866AD, you could find yourself in the middle of a battle. That was the year the first Danish marauders stormed the old Roman city walls of Saxon York.

Ending up in the middle of a battle may not be the only shock you'll get when you visit the new-look Jorvik Viking Centre. When you do finally arrive safely in 975AD, don't expect to get the red carpet treatment.

The time capsules which will ferry you on your journey around the great metropolis will be safe and comfortable enough - but they won't insulate you from the noise and smells of everyday life going on around you.

No expense is being spared during the Jorvik Centre's £4.8 million revamp to create the illusion that you're in a real Viking city. As you pass along reconstructed Viking Coppergate, animatronic dogs will fight, chickens will scratch for grain in the mud and Vikings will stop their work and watch you as you go past. Jets of scent will carry the authentic smell of Viking Jorvik to your nostrils and there will be a veritable bedlam of noise - people shouting, hawking and arguing, dogs bickering, chickens clucking.

The time capsules which sweep you along the main street will carry you through some of the ancient city's less pleasant quarters, too - such as a latrine.

Richard Kemp is characteristically enthusiastic about the grainy authenticity of it all.

"There will be a fully animatronic man on the toilet," he says. "He's having a bit of trouble. It is a fairly disgusting part of the city. Near it there will be an open pit full of animal entrails. People will be thinking 'Yuck! No wonder they had so many diseases'."

At the moment, the site of the 'new' Viking city, 15 feet beneath today's Coppergate, is little more than a building site. The old city has been stripped out completely: and the new is gradually rising in its place. Sets are being constructed on the bare concrete floors. Workmen in hard hats are banging, sawing, hammering and welding. In total, some 200 people are working on the mammoth overhaul. Bits of wire dangle from the ceiling or are draped across the floor: and the severed halves of a Viking longboat lie at one end of the site, where the Foss wharf will be reconstructed.

But Mr Kemp is confident the museum will be ready for its grand re-opening on or before April 14 - the 17th anniversary of the opening of the original Jorvik Centre.

The attention to detail is astonishing. The stairwell that leads down from the entrance of the museum to the new time machine will have walls layered with archaeological deposits - giving visitors the sense of descending through time. Workmen spent two days painstakingly creating the layered effect - only to be told by original site excavator Richard Hall to do it again. "He said the layers weren't exactly as they'd looked on the original dig," says Richard Kemp.

Authenticity is important because the recreated Viking city is being built exactly on the site of Richard Hall's original excavation - and the final part of the city will use timbers and other objects actually recovered during the dig.

For visitors familiar with 'old' Jorvik, it will be the sheer size of the new city that will surprise.

Not only will it be two-and-a-half times as big as the original - but panoramic cityscapes painted around the walls will also increase the impression of size and space.

The centrepiece will be four large Viking buildings, all fronting on to Coppergate - but it will be obvious that they're part of a bigger city.

The time capsule will rise up from the River Foss through a warren of streets between these buildings, turning and twisting back on itself, to eventually emerge on Coppergate.

"We want people to feel they could get lost in there, just the way you get lost when you visit a city you're not familiar with," says Richard Kemp. "If we can create that feeling, we know it's working."

Updated: 09:35 Saturday, January 27, 2001