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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