the present author) is representative. This may have been due to the
increasing availability of colour-coated beakers from British industries
that is a feature of the last third of the third century, but it is not
certain that these types were very much more common than ‘Rhenish’
(Trier black colour-coated or ‘Moselkeramik’ ware) and ‘Castor’
wares (Nene Valley, Rhine-land and Colchester bag-beakers with barbotine or
rouletted decoration) were in the earlier years of this century.
The production of red-surfaced fine wares, thought to have
begun on the Upchurch Marshes or in the Swale area in the early third
century consequent upon the dearth of samian imports, may have continued
into the mid-third, although there is little hard evidence for this. Red
ware flagons and flasks seem to have declined in popularity, along with
white-surface flagons, in the early third century. Vessels of these types
produced by subsequent generations of Romano-British potters particularly in
the fourth century tend to exhibit reduced or dark brown surfaces (cf. e.g.
Fulford 1975a, Types 1—16; Young 1977a, 123, and Types R1—R14; Lyne and
Jefferies 1979, Class 8; Howe et al. 1980, nos. 13, 14, 63—70), for
which inspiration may be sought in the black colour-coated flagons and
flasks produced by Trier until the middle of the third century, although not
exported to Britain (R. Symonds, pers. comm.). Beakers also tend to have
dark surfaces, although this tradition may be traced back to the
first-century Terra Nigra and rough-cast wares. These preferences
help explain the rarity of flasks and beakers in fine oxidised wares in the
third century, although other industries such as that at Much Hadham in
Hertfordshire, and the establishments responsible for ‘streak-burnished’
ware found at Canterbury (Green 1981), also produced orange and red closed
forms.
The pottery industry at Much Hadham, near Bishop’s Stortford
in Hertfordshire, became a major supplier of oxidised fine sandy wares to
East Anglia, Essex and
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Hertfordshire during the course of the third century. Little is at present
known about the industry, whose products have only become widely recognised
since the mid-1970s (e.g. Fulford 1975a, fig. 61; Orton 1977b; Partridge
1981); research currently being undertaken (by C. Going, pers. comm.) will
alleviate this deficiency. It is known that fine sandy grey, burnished
black, and white-slip wares were manufactured in addition to the burnished
oxidised wares. In Kent the white-slip ware is confined, on present
knowledge, to sherds probably of a single vessel from late second- to mid
third-century contexts in Canterbury (Pollard forthcoming, d). A grey ware
bead-and-flange bowl from Chalk, found in a fourth-century context (4.V.2),
provides an apparently unique instance of one of the most characteristic
forms in this ware in Kent, and it may be that the oxidised ware alone
achieved a wide usage south of the Thames. This ware had been adopted in
London by the mid-third century (Harden and Green 1978), and was current in
north-west Kent at least by the last years of the century, as examples
sealed by the collapse of the ‘cellar’ building at Chalk testify
(Johnston 1972: these vessels are unpublished). It is possible that a wider
distribution in Kent was achieved by the end of this century (cf. Figs. 34
and 51), but most sherds occur in general mid third- to fourth- or
purely fourth-century contexts, and the broader aspects of the trade are
more appropriately discussed in the section on the fourth century
(4.V.1).
‘Streak-burnished’ ware, a fine-textured oxidised fabric
with discrete facet-burnishing, may be a variant of the fine oxidised ware
found at Ospringe, many examples of which exhibit a badly deteriorated
surface due to soil action. The date range of the former ware at Canterbury
is tentatively placed in the century between c. A.D. 275 and 375
(Green 1981). The forms include the tall-necked bulbous beakers, S-profile
bead-rim jar, Drag. 38-derived and Drag. 36-derived
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