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domestic functions. ‘Poppyhead’ beakers account for between 30 per cent
and 60 per cent of fine grey ware assemblages of Hadrianic to mid-third
century date quantified by the present author; other forms that regularly
figure in groups of this period include rouletted bag-beakers (cf. no. 147
here), everted-rim beakers and jars with tooled decoration of BB2 type (cf.
no. 191), and necked bead-rim globular bowls. The first two types are
particularly characteristic of the later second and third centuries,
paralleling the development of colour-coated and BB2 wares respectively (cf.
Greene 1978a, and Howe et al 1980, for colour-coated ware, and the
following section for BB2).
The late second century witnessed an expansion in the range of
fine grey ware products. Tall-necked globular-bodied ‘bulbous beakers’,
sometimes folded, were produced from this time until the demise of the
industry at the turn of the fourth century (nos. 152—4 here; cf.
Noel Hume 1954). These forms were presumably derived from black-slip ‘Rhenish’
ware imports, folded vessels having been previously confined to cornice-rim
and short-everted rim types. A number of unusual forms is represented in the
mid-second to early fourth century cemetery at Ospringe (Whiting et al. 1931),
including multi-cordoned ‘sugar loaf’ beakers (no. 151 here) and
sub-globular carinated ‘poppyhead’ beakers (no. 146 here); these forms
have yet to be recognised on occupation sites, however. The Ospringe
material also includes a variety of flasks including flange-neck and
bead-everted rim types, in reduced and oxidised wares (nos. 169—173 here).
The flange-neck is also encountered on flagons, and would seem to be a
development of the very late second or early third century; it was also
produced in Oxfordshire, in a variety of wares, from c. A.D. 240
onwards (Young 1977a, Types W21, C8 and 0.4). Flasks in fine reduced and
oxidised wares are more typical of eastern Kent than the Medway valley and
western districts, where fine sandy ware products
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predominate (see below).
The fine reduced wares of the Hadrianic-Severan period in Kent
may all have emanated from the Upchurch industry, there being no obvious
regional sub-groups of forms as were recognised in the Flavian-Trajanic
period. The operation of potteries producing ‘Highgate Wood types’ in
the London area precluded intensive marketing in the extreme north-west of
Kent and in London and Southwark; even as far east of London as Joyden’s
Wood, ‘Highgate Wood types’ outnumber fine reduced wares by a ratio of
5:2, taking the total assemblage recovered from that site into account. The
quantified evidence from other sites in Kent (Appendix 5) leads to the
suggestion that fine reduced wares declined in importance in west Kent and
the Medway valley, in relation to other wares, during the later second and
third centuries, although this decline is less marked, if the fine wares are
studied in isolation from the remainder of the pottery. The development of
beaker and flask production by the ‘Cliffe Peninsula’ sandy ware
industry (4.IV.2) may have been the prime cause of this phenomenon. This
would explain why the decline is not apparent at Canterbury, for ‘Cliffe
Peninsula’ ‘fine’ forms are rare in the city, and infrequently found
in east Kent generally (Fig. 46). Fine reduced wares, of possible Upchurch
origin, also occur in southern and eastern Essex, for example at Mucking
(Romano-British cemetery III, burials 1014, 1028 and 1031; and
cemetery II, burial 903, with mid- to late second-century samian),
Billericay (unpublished), Little Shelford (e.g. James and James 1978, no. 9,
and unpublished material) and Little Oakley, to the north of Colchester
(unpublished). It would seem that the dot-panel ‘poppyhead’ beaker was
not manufactured at Colchester (Hull 1963), and appears to have been more
common along the Thames estuary than in eastern and northern Essex (C.
Going, pers. comm.). The fabrics of Mucking vessels suggest local production
as well as possible importation from the Medway marshes and the London area;
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