York's bid for UN World Heritage status

STAND on Platform One at York Railway Station, and you’ll be closer than you imagine to some of York’s ancient inhabitants. “There are dead Romans under Platform One,” says John Oxley. “Where people park their bikes now. There are dead Romans underneath there.”

Mind you, it’s more than likely that there are dead Romans underneath you pretty much anywhere you go in York: especially if you live anywhere near The Mount, which is effectively on top of a giant Roman burial ground. And if not dead Romans, then dead Saxons, or Vikings, or Normans.

This is a city with extraordinary layers of history, going back deep into the past.

Nowhere are they more obvious than beneath an often-overlooked stretch of the city’s ancient walls behind the central library.

There, reached through a gate in the multangular tower in Museum Gardens, is a stretch of inner wall which, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, was excavated to form a deep trench.

At the bottom of this trench is the Anglian Tower. Despite its name – it was once thought to have been built by Northumbrian, hence Anglo-Saxon, kings – this is likely to be a late Roman addition to the city’s defences, says John, the city archaeologist.

Look up at the walls from here and you can see 2,000 years of history set out above you. There’s the base of the original Roman walls; the slightly later Anglian tower; and, soaring above all, the squared, dressed stone of the still later medieval wall.

There is tragedy here, too. The archaeologist in charge of this excavation was Jeffrey Radley. One lunchtime, in 1970, he climbed down into the excavated trench, to examine the work. “While he was at the bottom, the trench collapsed and killed him,” John says.

A plaque commemorating Mr Radley can be seen on the Anglian Tower to this day.

History is one of the things that helps make York a very special place indeed.

Mr Oxley likes to talk about the “transition periods” which have shaped the city we know today.

The first was the arrival of the Romans nearly 2,000 years ago, to build a legionary fortress at the confluence of two rivers on what had been mainly agricultural land.

Eight hundred years later, the Vikings put their own stamp on the city. They were the city’s first “town planners”, John says, setting out a grid of new streets around the old Roman Via Principalis – the main road through the old Roman fortress, stretching from Bootham Bar to Kings Square.

The Vikings also set out tenement plots – plots of land 16½ feet wide fronting onto the streets, each of which held a home or other building. Astonishingly, in Stonegate, Walmgate and Fossgate, traces of these ancient tenement plots survive in the layout of the streets today.

In 1067, the Normans came, building two castles, Cliffords Tower and Baile Hill, and, on the north side of the city, two magnificent stone churches – York Minster and St Mary’s Abbey.

The city underwent a staggering transformation, says John. “If you were born in about 1055 and grew up as a lad in this timber-built Anglo-Viking city, then if you died at 45 or 50 you would have seen this extraordinary change.”

Henry VIII was the next to leave his mark. By 1536, York had become a city of precincts – York Minster, within its walled precinct; and St Mary’s Abbey and several priories, each with their own walled precincts.

Henry dissolved the monasteries, stripped them of their lands – and the precinct walls came down, opening York up. And then, 300 years later, came the railways, changing the face of the city yet again.

All these influences can still be seen today. But it isn’t only history that makes York special.

Through the railways, and through chocolate, York has a unique industrial heritage.

It was a cradle of the sciences, too. In the 1780s, the young astronomer John Goodricke observed the heavens from a window in Treasurer’s House and suggested that the star Algol, which varied in brightness, might actually be two stars circling around each other.

It was an astonishing observation, says John Oxley, which “has formed the basis of our whole measurement of the universe.” York also, through the Yorkshire Philosophical Society, played a major role in developing the sciences of geology and botany.

Then there’s York’s role in pioneering social reform. Seebohm Rowntree changed for ever the way the poor were viewed, and laid the foundations for the modern welfare state.

This really is an amazing city. It is only right, therefore, that – rather belatedly – York should be trying to win the recognition it deserves as a World Heritage Site.

A steering group set up by former Lord Mayor Janet Hopton has been working on the case for several years. The city council has now lodged an application with the Department of Culture, Media and Sport for York to be included on a “tentative list” of potential UK sites. From 2012 onwards, one site on the list will be put forward to UNESCO by the UK every two years.

If York were to be successful, it would take its place on the world heritage stage alongside the likes of the pyramids, the Great Wall of China, the Taj Mahal and North Yorkshire’s Fountains Abbey, not to mention UK cities such as Bath and Edinburgh.

With such a rich history and heritage, York would seem to be an obvious candidate.

But ironically, the basis of the bid isn’t the city’s history, or its architecture, or even York’s industrial or social importance.

There is no shortage of walled, medieval cities that have already achieved World Heritage status, Mr Oxley says.

If we want to join them York, as a latecomer, has to find some other reason to be included.

The answer, York’s world heritage steering group believes, lies in what lies beneath the city.

Those ancient Roman burial grounds – including, recently and famously, what may be a gladiators’ cemetery – are part of it.

But there is something more: the “anoxic” archaeological deposits beneath York, which span 2,000 years of history.

In the waterlogged mud under the city, there is very little oxygen – hence that “anoxic”.

This means that organic archaeology – everything from woven cloth to the leather of belts and shoes and the timber from ancient buildings and ships – is preserved, where normally it would be lost.

Some astonishing things have survived – including a Viking beehive complete with bees; a Viking cap, thought to have been made in York from silk imported from China; and, on the site of the Hungate excavation, timber from the cellar of Viking houses.

Analysis has suggested they may have come from Viking boats that originated in the Baltic sea in about 970 AD – a demonstration of where York, or Jorvik, fitted in in the Viking world of the tenth century.

Anoxic deposits such as these might not seem the most exciting or dramatic of finds. But they are unrivalled in what they tell us about the lives of ordinary people, says John Oxley.

Take that silk cap, for example. “It came out of a cess pit behind a Viking house,” Mr Oxley says. Not even a particularly important house. Which means that a cap made from this incredibly precious cloth, imported from the other side of the world, was within the means of possibly quite ordinary Vikings.

That says a lot about the wealth and importance of Viking-age York. And a lot about why the modern city deserves to take its place on the world stage.

How World Heritage status would benefit York

Becoming a World Heritage Site wouldn’t bring money flooding into York.

It isn’t about that, says John Oxley. But it would be a recognition of just how special the city is.

There would be many benefits, city leaders believe.

According to York’s application to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport to be included on the ‘tentative list’ of potential new World Heritage Sites, these would include:

• Helping to “preserve the beautiful city in which we live and work”

• Improving the quality of life for residents and visitors

• Raising York’s global profile and be a recognition that the city’s heritage is world class

• Showcasing the city’s world-class archaeology, and the city’s unique way of presenting that

• Increasing inward investment and business development, especially for businesses involved in the heritage and tourism sectors

• Helping safeguard the city’s tourism industry. Seven million people a year Visit York, generating £443 million for the city’s economy and creating nearly 23,000 jobs, the application says.

There is another benefit on top of all these, however, stresses Mr Oxley. “It would be an immense source of pride to the people who live here, a recognition that this really is a special place.”

Gillian Cruddas, chief executive of Visit York, is an enthusiastic backer of the bid. ‘Visit York has been working closely with the York World Heritage Steering group in the city and our research shows a strong amount of public support for it,” she said. “World Heritage Status would help us to preserve the heritage of the city through sustainable tourism policies and offer a new platform on which to market the city.”

Stiff competition

York is a late arrival when it comes to bidding for World Heritage status.

Bath, pictured, became a World Heritage city in 1987, Edinburgh in 1995. But while York toyed with the idea of submitting a bid in the early 1990s, it never did.

The city should know whether it has made it onto the UK’s tentative list of five potential new sites by next spring.

One of those sites would then be put forward to UNESCO for World Heritage Status every two years, from 2012 through to 2020. UNESCO would have the final say – and with competition from around the globe expected to be stiff, there would be no guarantees.