Britain (Fulford 1981). This reform broadly coincides with the foundation of
a considerable number of villas in Kent and elsewhere, and with the
development of civic building in Canterbury (Wacher 1975; Blockley
and Day forthcoming). These processes provided conditions beneficial to the
expansion of trade in the province, through which pottery industries such as
those producing fine grey and painted wares in north Kent were able to
spring up. These developments also coincided with the decline in importation
of Gallo-Belgic wares in the early Flavian period (see above), and the
demise of the Lyon and Central Gaulish glazed ware concerns. It is possible
that the trade in Gallo-Belgic wares slackened as a direct result of the
expansion of Romano-British industries, but the dating evidence from Kent
suggests that the local fine grey industries emerged some little time after
the waning of the Gallo-Belgic trade. This emergence coincided, or was soon
followed by, a marked fall in samian importation in the last two decades of
the first century. The conventional dating of most of the various industries
in and around London to a foundation c. A.D.
80—90 suggests that these were enterprises which from the outset sought to
exploit what must have been something of a vacuum in the market for fine
pottery. The pre-existing(?) fine ware industries undoubtedly also reaped
the benefits of such a situation. It is interesting to note, however, that
few of the fine wares produced in the south-east in this period faithfully
copied samian ware: the basic South Gaulish forms were widely copied, or,
debatably, used as prototypes, particularly forms Drag. 18/31, 27,
30 and 37. Red wares are uncommon relative to reduced wares amongst
the fine wares used in Kent, and the London industries do not seem to have
produced red wares at all (see above). This phenomenon is in marked contrast
with the situation in the later third and fourth centuries, when a wide
range of potteries large and small turned out red wares of general
similarity to the samian forms of the late second
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and early third centuries (see below); it is difficult to escape the
conclusion that by the end of the Flavian period red fine wares had not made
the impact upon the consumer that is later so strongly in evidence.
The flagons of the Flavian-Trajanic period have been partially
described above. In addition to fine oxidised and white-slipped fabrics, a
variety of buff and white wares occur, the later including fabrics with a
greenish tinge suggestive of a clay source in the Gault stratum that lies at
the foot of the North Downs escarpment in Kent and Surrey. The Otford
pottery was probably in operation in the early/mid Flavian period, producing
vessels in ‘red clay, changing even in the same vessel to yellow or brown’
(Pearce 1930, 161; nos. 102—106 here). Unfortunately, this pottery appears
to have been lost subsequent to excavation. The significance of the Otford
concern is discussed below (6.VI.1). The Canterbury, Brockley Hill and
London industries also produced flagons, the last-named in mica-dusted ware
(Marsh 1978, Types 1—4). Between them Canterbury and Brockley Hill
distributed their products throughout Kent (Fig. 22),
although the small numbers of these wares in the Medway valley area
in comparison with the greater quantities found in east and west Kent,
respectively, suggests that direct competition between the two was on a
small scale; the oxidised and white-slipped wares suspected of being
produced on the Upchurch Marshes were probably the major supplier to the
Medway valley area. The forms of this period include globular vessels with
ring-necks (no. 73 here), ‘pulley-rims’ (no. 77), and pinched-spout jugs
(no. 74). The disc-rim flagon (cf. no. 36) appears to be confined to the
first century, but the dating evidence is not entirely clear on this point.
The flagon formed an intimate part of pottery production at both Canterbury
and Brockley Hill, and was one of the most widely-distributed forms of these
industries (see below, and Pollard 1983a, 351—83).
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