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2. The Coarse Wares of West Kent
The mid-Flavian to Trajanic period witnessed the demise of grog- and
shell-tempered wares in west Kent, and the emergence of wheel-thrown
sand-tempered wares throughout the area. The rate of change from the use of
fabrics that were well-established in the Conquest period to the adoption of
wheel-thrown sandy wares is difficult to gauge, owing to the paucity of
well-stratified sequences. Moreover, it would appear that in more western
parts, notably the Darent, Cray and Ravensbourne valleys, ‘Patch Grove’
ware increased in popularity up to the Trajanic period. Exotic coarse wares
include Brockley Hill buff sandy ware, London, Highgate Wood and Alice Holt
grey sandy wares.
The stratigraphic sequence at Southwark allows some valuable
information on the development of pottery in this period to be deduced
(Tyers and Marsh 1978). Grogged and shell-tempered wares were apparently out
of use by the turn of the century, with the exception of storage jars (ibid.,
forms IIL and IIM) in both fabric types. Sand-tempered ware from a
variety of sources virtually monopolised the market in coarse wares. This
phenomenon does not seem to be so emphatic on rural sites to the south-east
of Southwark, however. Here, shell-tempered wares were undoubtedly
little-used after the Flavian period, if at all. ‘Patch Grove’ ware
enjoyed its apogee in the late Flavian and Trajanic years, supplying rural
sites throughout the area of the Darent valley and westernmost Kent with
necked wide-mouth storage jars, carinated-shoulder jars and bowls, S-profile
narrow-neck jars and wide-mouth bowls, and bead-rim jars and bowls (nos. 17—21
here). Meates (cf. Pollard 1987, Fabric 73) has dated the ‘Patch Grove’
ware at Lullingstone villa mainly to the Flavian-Trajanic period,
considering Antonine occurrences as implicitly residual with the exception
of storage jars. These forms are
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also abundant in the upper Darent valley site of Otford (Charne building
site, —unpublished except for an
interim note: Meates 1954), and in the Bromley —
West Wickham area of what is now south-east London (Philp 1973).
Shelly wares are absent at Otford Charne, though present at the Otford ‘Progress’
villa site, which was founded at a somewhat earlier date in the first
century A.D. (Appendix 1); they are also confined to two sherds on a late
first/early second century A.D. plus site at Bromley Oakley House (Philp
1973), from which nearly 300
‘Patch Grove’ ware and 350 ‘Romanised’ sandy and fine
wares were recovered. The total assemblage from an early second to
mid-fourth century site at Joyden’s Wood, in the lower Cray valley,
included some 10 per cent ‘Patch Grove’ ware (by vessel rim equivalents)
but only storage jars (as no. 16) in shelly ware. Further east both ‘Patch
Grove’ and shelly wares, storage jars excepted, were little used in this
period: a rural site at Greenhithe (Detsicas 1966) included a Trajanic-early
Hadrianic pit fill in which just over 2 per cent and 10 per cent,
respectively, of these wares were recovered. The evidence of residual
material at Springhead and Rochester (Appendix 5) suggests that, as at
Greenhithe, shell and shell-sand wares may have continued in production
somewhat later than in western districts, being superseded by sandy wares
alone.
The locally produced sandy wares of this period comprise for
the most part bead-rim jars and cordoned necked jars and bowls (nos. 91—94
here), following the formal traditions of grog-tempered and shell-tempered
wares. These occur throughout west Kent; one kiln site, at Chalk (Allen
1954) is known, but this may date to the Hadrianic-Antonine period on
the grounds of the BB2 vessels a1so produced there (see below). The Highgate
Wood industry, in north London, produced bead-rim and short-flange-rim jars
and bowls in grogged and, less frequently, sandy wares up to the end of the
first century (Brown and Sheldon 1974, Phase II).
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