Roman soldiers · Historic house · York
Treasurer’s House
Minster Yard · York
Behind an elegant house beside York Minster lies a cellar where a young engineer reported watching Roman soldiers emerge through the wall – visible only from the knees upward, as though the past were still walking at its own buried level.
Photo: Malcolmxl5 / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0
One extraordinary encounter beneath two thousand years of York
Treasurer’s House is worth visiting before a ghost even enters the room. The house grew from the medieval residence of York Minster’s treasurers and was reshaped with formidable precision by collector Frank Green. Beneath it lie traces of Roman Eboracum and a cellar associated with an apparition account whose strangest detail later fitted the archaeology under the building remarkably well.
Your visit at a glance
Visitor information rechecked 14 August 2026Built above one York, shaped by another
The building visitors see is mostly post-medieval, but its site carries much older layers. Understanding those layers is what makes the cellar story so difficult to shake off.
A road beneath the house
Treasurer’s House stands within the fortress of Roman Eboracum. Archaeology beneath the property identified the via Decumana, one of the principal roads through the legionary headquarters.
The Roman surface lies below the modern cellar floor. That buried difference in height later became the most memorable point of contact between archaeology and Harry Martindale’s account.The treasurers’ residence
The site was associated with the treasurers of nearby York Minster. The surviving house developed later, incorporating and replacing earlier structures within the cathedral precinct.
Its title sounds grand because it was: this was one of York’s most prestigious addresses, shaped by proximity to the Minster and generations of influential occupants.Frank Green’s perfect house
Industrial heir and collector Frank Green acquired the neglected property in 1897. He restored and rearranged it as a carefully staged historic interior, complete with furniture positioned to his exact plan.
Green gave Treasurer’s House to the National Trust in 1930. His exacting personality still defines the visit and appears in some of the house’s later ghost traditions.Harry Martindale and the soldiers below the floor
Eighteen-year-old apprentice heating engineer Harry Martindale was working in the cellar when he heard what he described as a musical or trumpet-like sound. A helmeted figure appeared through the wall, followed by a horse and a column of roughly twenty soldiers. Martindale said the figures looked tired, carried round shields and short weapons, and passed across the cellar before disappearing.
The most peculiar detail was not simply that the soldiers seemed Roman. Martindale reported seeing them only from around the knees upward, as if their lower legs were hidden beneath the floor. Later archaeological work confirmed that an important Roman road ran below the house at a lower level.
That correspondence is intriguing, but it does not turn one frightening witness account into archaeological proof of an apparition. Nor does the popular retelling remain perfectly stable: descriptions of clothing, numbers and the curator’s reaction vary between versions. What endures is the central experience Harry described – a procession moving through the cellar on a level belonging to an older city.
The Romans are not the only unexpected residents
Staff, volunteers and visitors have attached further experiences to the house. The National Trust presents these openly as stories and reports, inviting visitors to make up their own minds.
A second cellar account
The National Trust records a later account from housekeeper Joan Mawson, who said she heard horses and saw soldiers in the cellar in 1957. Her story emerged independently years later, adding another strand without resolving the case.
The café cat
Visitors have repeatedly reported a remarkably solid-looking cat in the basement café – sometimes convincing enough to raise questions about why an animal is indoors. The Trust says no resident café cat exists.
Frank Green returns
Smells, footsteps and glimpsed figures have been linked to Green and other former occupants. They belong to the house’s living folklore rather than its documented biography, but suit a place arranged so forcefully around one man’s vision.
Book the house, then explore the Roman city around it
The guided house tour is the core visit. Add the free garden and York Minster precinct, then continue into the city’s Roman remains if Harry’s procession has left you wanting to follow the road further.
A focused Treasurer’s House visit
The house sits immediately beside York Minster, so arrive on foot from a city-centre car park or by public transport rather than trying to drive to the entrance.
Reserve a guided tour
Tickets are released on a rolling basis. Booking ahead is recommended, especially while the story is attracting fresh attention; walk-in places cannot be guaranteed.
Read the rooms
Look beyond the ghost story to Frank Green’s deliberately arranged interiors. The tour explains how the building was assembled into the historic house visitors experience today.
Step into the garden
On open days, the garden is free and frames one of York’s loveliest Minster views. It is a calmer place to absorb the idea of a Roman road still surviving beneath your feet.
Tickets, arrival & parking
The house is in York’s pedestrian-friendly Minster precinct. There is no visitor car park; nearby council options include Monk Bar, Bootham Row and Union Terrace. Check the live National Trust calendar because tour days, themes and seasonal access change.
Arrival: official pedestrian pin ///wake.loves.libraries
Booking: advised for April–October guided tours
Access, dogs & facilities
Three ground-floor showrooms and reception can be viewed without the main staircase, while many other rooms, the café and toilet require steps. The garden has level access, but the house includes narrow passages and changes of level.
Keep following York’s older layers
Treasurer’s House sits in the densest part of historic York. Both additions below are walkable, making it easy to turn a one-hour tour into a strong half-day.
York Minster
Explore the cathedral that gave Treasurer’s House its name and status. The Undercroft reveals Roman and Norman archaeology beneath the Minster, giving the city’s buried levels a physical reality.
Plan a visit ↗Yorkshire Museum
Continue with objects from Roman Eboracum and later York. It is the useful factual counterweight to the cellar story: the army, settlement and buried city reconstructed from physical evidence.
Plan a visit ↗Visit the house where two levels of York meet
Treasurer’s House does not need a staged ghost hunt. Its power lies in the collision between one young witness’s terrifying account, a Roman road buried beneath the floor and a beautiful house that has gathered centuries of character above it. The cellar may remain out of reach, but the story changes how you walk through every room.