HAS the ghost of York's Kilima Hotel finally been unearthed?

Staff at the 15-bedroomed premises have long believed in the existence of a friendly Roman soldier spirit nicknamed Charlie.

Now archaeologists excavating a development site at the Kilima Hotel, on Holgate Road, have discovered a human skeleton wearing hob-nail boots.

The hotel, which is undergoing a £700,000 revamp, stands just outside an extensive Roman burial ground which covered an area from Holgate Road to Tadcaster Road.

Human remains dated from before 400AD were also found by workmen carrying out alterations on the site in 1980.

Nick Pearson, manager of On-Site Archaeology, said: "We got called in to excavate the land as part of the hotel's planning permission. The whole area was a thriving Roman town from the first to the fifth century. There are thousands of dead Romans.

"We don't know if the body is male or female. It is wearing hob-nail boots or shoes and looks like a young adult. The footwear was quite common with the Romans and the military certainly wore them. There have been no other finds. I can't say whether there are ghosts, but there are a lot of dead bodies round there."

Andrew Dolan, 19, the junior assistant manager, said: "I haven't seen any ghosts myself but people say they have seen Charlie all over the hotel, particularly on the bottom floor and the restaurant.

"We have a customer who stays with us regularly. He swears that he saw Charlie at the end of his bed, although he'd had a full bottle of wine and seven pints of beer! I'll believe it when I see it."

The remains are currently being analysed at the University of York and could eventually be stored at the Yorkshire Museum for research purposes.

Richard Stables, the hotel owner, said the find should not delay the development work which included a new leisure club and major extension.

He added: "Finding the remains was a major surprise. Staff say they have seen ghosts in the building but I have been here 20 years and have never seen anything."