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The Roman Pottery of Kent
by Dr Richard J. Pollard  -  Chapter 4  page 119
Doctoral thesis completed in 1982, published 1988

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  

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

Page 119

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