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colour-coated ware type is confined to this century, the ‘ovolo-stamped’
hemispherical bowl (ibid., C58). A single sherd of this has been
noted from a site just north of Richborough, from which has been recovered
pottery of first- to fourth-century date (Cottington Lane, on the Isle of
Thanet; information from N. Macpherson-Grant, pottery identification by the
present author). Young published a single example of this type from the
Churchill Hospital kiln site in Oxford (1977a, 162—3) within a
third-century phase. Negative evidence from mid third-century contexts at
Lullingstone (Meates et al. 1952, nos. 59—66; the room number has been
changed from 15 to 10 for the definitive report, Meates 1979) and Maidstone
Mount (unpublished) villas provides some support for the view that
Oxfordshire fine wares were extremely rare, if present at all, in most of
Kent before the late third century. However, it is clear from the Chalk ‘cellar’
assemblage that a variety of forms in red colour-coated ware was circulating
in the final quarter of the century, including tall- necked bulbous beakers
(Young 1977a, C27), ‘Drag. 38’ flanged hemispherical bowls (ibid., C51
and C109), painted-flange-rim segmental bowls (ibid., C48), and
bead-rim hemispherical bowls (ibid., C55). Mortaria of samian
‘Drag. 45’ derivation (ibid., C97) may have also been used at
this time. The Parchment ware bowl from Richborough is apparently a unique
example of unequivocally third-century importation of this ware to Kent.
Fine white-surfaced wares are generally uncommon in this
century in Kent. Flagons would seem to have been used less than in the
preceding centuries. The cupped ring-neck form (no. 161 here) may have
lasted into the early decades of the third century, and such vessels usually
have, a pale buff to white surface. Flange-neck flagons and flasks (nos.
167, 169—170), a more typically late second- to fourth-century form,
occasionally have pale surfaces. The popularity of dark-surfaced flagons and
flasks has been mentioned earlier in this section. White ware flasks with
red
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paint zonal decoration, possibly from the Nene valley
(Howe et al. 1980, no. 95), are represented on several sites in contexts of third- to
fourth-century date, although in contrast with Nene Valley beakers and
mortaria of this period, these occurrences are biased towards the Medway
valley (Appendix 3). Other forms are occasionally found with white surfaces,
including the carinated bowl in Oxfordshire Parchment ware (Bushe-Fox 1949,
no. 460), and a ‘Drag. 38’ flanged hemispherical bowl in white-slipped
fine oxidised ware (from a late second- to mid third-century deposit in
Canterbury: unpublished).
Fulford (1975a, 108—9) has suggested that ‘the demand for
red slipped wares, and possibly all fine, slipped pottery decreased
significantly in the third century in comparison with the second’. The
basis for this proposition is the low incidence of such wares on British
sites subsequent to the cessation of Central Gaulish samian production in
the early third century. It is clear from the foregoing discussion that a
variety of fine red ware bowls was in use in Kent in the third century, but
the small body of quantified data on samian and other fine wares does seem
to support Fulford’s hypothesis, at least with regard to red bowls. There
is no indication of a synchronous decline in the circulation of slipped
beakers, although the third-century sources supplying Kent differ to a large
extent from those of the Antonine period. The Upchurch Marshes fine ware
industry may have waned in the third century, due in part to competition
from fine sandy burnished wares produced on the Cliffe peninsula, but
possibly also to the slow encroachment of the sea upon the area of the
marshes where potting is thought to have taken place (5.II.4). A late
third-century resurgence in the production of fine pottery in Roman Britain
is indicated by the development of the Oxfordshire and New Forest
industries, and at a more local level perhaps also ‘streak-burnished’
ware in east Kent. Fulford (1975a, 109—11) links this to a general
economic expansion connected with the large outlay of public money on
projects such as the
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