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Victoria County History of Kent Vol. 3  1932 - Romano-British Kent - Industries - Page 133

   The Rev. C. Eveleigh Woodruff, who has known the Upchurch Marshes all his life, writes40  that although antiquaries have recently ‘doubted the existence of Roman potteries in the Upchurch Marshes, I am inclined to believe that their scepticism is the result of an imperfect knowledge of the extensive site over which Romano-British vessels have been found. The difficulty of making anything like a complete survey is very great, and during the last forty years this difficulty has been much increased by encroachments of the sea and the removal in barges of many thousands of tons of mud for the cement works, so that many of the sites which in old days yielded the best evidence of the potteries are now inaccessible or even unrecognizable. When I was a boy, the mud in Otterham Creek was strewn with fragments of pottery, last summer I failed to see a single bit. From Halstow Creek to Burntwick Marsh, a distance of quite three miles, vessels were found in such abundance that it is impossible to suppose that the inhabitants of what could never have been a very eligible residential neighbourhood could have required so much fictile ware for their own use.
   ‘I remember the discovery of a circular kiln on the occasion of your visit. It was, I think, not more than 3 ft. in diameter, with walls of roughly-baked clay, and in or near it we found several of those black bricks, tapering at either end, which Roach Smith called ‘kiln-bricks.’ The kiln was covered with liquid mud, but we cleared it partially, and then, owing to the rising tide, had to abandon it. I notice that my father records in his journal certain expeditions to the marshes to dig for pottery in the ‘thirties and ‘forties of the last century and that he never seems to have had a blank day, the bag generally being recorded as so many bushel baskets of pots! I may add, too, that when I was a schoolboy I was taken to see the rector of Hastingleigh, who had charge of the parish of Upchurch before my father became vicar of the parish. (about 1828). He spoke of the Roman potteries, and I remember he said that in his day the vessels could be seen in places stacked one upon another. Even if we allow for some exaggeration, I think this is evidence that the remains were pretty abundant at that date.’
   In spite, however, of the great amount of literature describing pottery finds there are but few references to discoveries of the actual kilns. The late Mr. Cumberland Woodruff, whose collection of Upchurch pottery is now in Rochester Museum, writes that he saw the clearest traces of kilns and dug up portions of bricks with a vitrified glaze on the eastern bank of Otterham Creek ;41 both there and at Milfordhope, he says, the quantity of kiln bricks and ashes showed where vessels were burnt, but he adds that he was unable to trace more definite evidence of a kiln. Wasters and kiln-dross are mentioned by Charles Roach Smith in more than one paper, and the same writer definitely records the discovery of lumps of half-burnt clay and kiln refuse with complete vessels in Otterham Creek.42  Spurrell refers to the occurrence of walling, kiln-bars, and refuse at Slay Hills Saltings, and twice alludes to the discovery of a kiln apparently similar to the one at Hoo Junction near Higham.43  In Rochester Museum are several fire-bars and setters found
   40  In letter to Mr. W. Page, general editor of V.C.H.
  
41  Proc. Soc. Antiq. Lond. series ii, vii, 291; CoIl. Cant. (1893), pp. 77-81.
   42  Arch. xxix, 225; Coll. Antiq. as quoted.
   43  Arch. Journ. xlii, 278 ; above, p. 130.

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