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increase in Channel traffic, with a concomitant improvement in the
opportunities for shipping pottery from the south-west to the south-east.
Late third- and fourth-century New Forest fine wares also exhibit a
distribution along the Channel coast (Fulford 1975a, figs. 44 to 53), which
may have been influenced by the siting of the Saxon Shore forts in Sussex
and Kent (ibid., 120), although these apparently utilised only small
amounts of New Forest ware (ibid., fig. 55). Several external factors
can thus be adduced in order to explain the expansion of the Dorset BB1
trade to Kent in the late third century.
The increased importation of BB1 appears to have spawned a
number of imitators in the south-east. Williams (1977, 206) has isolated
non-Dorset BB1 in late fourth-century levels at Portchester and Verulamium;
an earlier fabric is macroscopically distinguishable from Dorset ware in
Canterbury and also at Wye, by virtue of the absence of the white quartz and
sparse rounded shale characteristic of Dorset, in place of which is a. suite
of abundant clear and translucent colourless and brown quartz, plus sparse
flint and black iron ore (Pollard forthcoming, d, fabric (ii)). This fabric
was made in the same forms as contemporary Dorset BB1, with the addition of
an angular-flanged bead-and-flange dish, a type common to several late Roman
industries (e.g. Alice Holt: Lyne and Jefferies 1979, Class 5B.8; Howe et
al. 1980, no. 79). It is dateable broadly to the very late third to
mid-fourth century at Canterbury; the slightly later date of introduction
supports the hypothesis that it was produced in response to the importation
of Dorset BB1.
A second hand-made fabric that first appears in east Kent in
the late third century is conventionally termed ‘Late Roman grog-tempered
ware’ (Pollard forthcoming, d). This ware is tempered with abundant grogs
of ill-assorted size, with minor inclusions of quartz, iron ore, mica and
flint sometimes present. It is invariably facet-burnished or wiped
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smooth, and jars may be decorated with burnished linear motifs, usually
lattices or oblique strokes. Core and surface are usually grey to drab
brown, occasionally oxidised, and usually soft and ‘soapy’ to the touch.
Forms are almost wholly confined to recurved rim jars (sometimes with a
shoulder offset), dog-dishes, and bead-and-flange or grooved-flange dishes
(nos. 204-8, 210—11 here), but everted-rim jars possibly derived from the
thickened BB1 form (Gillam 1970, Types 146 and 148; no. 209 here; cf. Green
1980, 78 for parallels of hand-made non-sandy ware exhibiting a BB1
influence) also occur. This ware is absent from a third-century group from 5
Watling Street, Canterbury (Jenkins 1952, Key Deposit 3; additional
unpublished material from this group has also been examined), which contains
a late third-century-plus BB1 jar (ibid., no. 21) and a coin of
Salonina (A.D. 253—268), but is present in the ‘black earth’ on Frere’s
theatre site (1970, Trench DIII, layer 39, with late third-century coins
plus one of c. AD. 330—335) in the order of 9 per cent of the
assemblage (vessel rim equivalents; 11 per cent of coarse wares), and in a
late third/early fourth-century redeposition of flood silt on the Marlowe
Car Park (Pollard forthcoming, d) as some 3 per cent (12 per cent of coarse
wares). It is not possible on present evidence to date its introduction on
other sites, but there is no reason to disbelieve that broadly contemporary
dates apply throughout east Kent. West of the Medway, however, the ware may
not have been produced or imported until the fourth century (4.V.2). Late
Roman grog tempered ware may conceivably have been produced alongside ‘Native
Coarse Ware’, but the lower firing temperature and wider range of forms
mitigate against such a circumstance. Its introduction seems to coincide
with a contraction in the numbers of ‘Native Coarse Ware’ vessels in use
at Canterbury, suggesting that in some sense the latter was superseded by
‘Late Roman’ grog-tempered ware.
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