A Sinkhole Opened Up on a Busy Street in England, Revealing the Remains of a Massive Medieval Hospital
Centuries ago, the site was home to St. Leonard’s Hospital, a sprawling monastic facility that provided care to sick individuals and supplied meals for prisoners at nearby York Castle
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Last month, a sinkhole opened up on a major road in York, England, prompting emergency repairs.
But construction came to a halt after crews discovered what appeared to be the remains of an old building beneath the roadway. Now, city officials say the sinkhole has revealed part of one of the largest medieval hospitals in northern England.
The void is located on St. Leonard’s Place in front of York Theater Royal, near the city center. But centuries ago, the site was home to St. Leonard’s Hospital, a sprawling monastic facility that provided care to sick individuals and supplied meals for prisoners at nearby York Castle.
The hospital was constructed in 1137 to replace an earlier facility, the St. Peters hospital, which had been damaged by a fire.
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“Overall, the main function of a medieval hospital was to care for the sick, the poor, the old and the infirm,” notes York Museum Gardens on its website. “Nurses performed acts of care, which included cleaning, feeding, clothing and housing the sick.”
However, religion also played a major role in medieval life. As a result, anyone who sought treatment for a physical illness at St. Leonard’s Hospital first had to confess their sins and have their soul cleansed.
“The daily routine of the hospital included religious rituals like regular prayers,” according to York Museum Gardens.
The hospital had big windows and tall ceilings to help circulate fresh air. These design decisions stemmed from the medieval belief that “bad air,” also known as miasma, caused sickness. The facility was also home to a grammar school for orphans, choirboys and boys who lived on the hospital’s land.
Need to know: Henry VIII and the English Reformation
- The infamous Tudor king broke from Rome in 1534, after the Catholic Church refused to grant him an annulment from his first wife, Catherine of Aragon.
- The English Reformation started by Henry VIII continued during the reigns of his three children, Edward VI, Mary I and Elizabeth I.
St. Leonard’s Hospital operated for years, until it was mostly destroyed in the late 1530s, during the English Reformation, which challenged the authority of the Catholic Church and led to the establishment of the Church of England. At that time, the religious aspects of hospitals like St. Leonard’s came under scrutiny, according to York Museum Gardens.
Some parts of the hospital are still standing today, including the remains of the chapel, infirmary and entrance passage. Pillars and vaulting from the hospital’s cellar are incorporated into the architecture of York Theater Royal, which opened in 1744. “In the 18th century, [Elizabeth] Keregan, who starts to build her theater, looks about for a place to buy, and there is a chunk of the hospital left standing,” John Soper, a tour guide at the theater, tells BBC News’ Kit Taylor. “She starts to build her theater on this site, on top of the old hospital and around it.”
After the Reformation, York did not have a hospital for some 200 years, from the final decade of Henry VIII’s reign, which spanned 1509 to 1547, until 1740, when the York County Hospital was established.
The old St. Leonard’s Hospital site was next used as the Royal Mint until 1863, when it was paved over to make a new boulevard. The area became one of the most fashionable parts of town during the Georgian period.
The discovery did not come as a surprise, because York is home to “a lot of complex archaeology,” says Kate Ravilious, a York city leader who oversees transportation, in the statement. The city can trace its roots back to Roman times, when it served as a legionary fortress called Eboracum.
“One of the consequences of living in a beautiful historic city like York is that when something like this happens, when we have a sinkhole, there often are some exciting archaeological remains to be looked at,” Ravilious says in a video accompanying the announcement.
