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Kent to provide comparable statistics to those from Lankhills, but the
establishment of a pewter works at Ickham, between Canterbury and
Richborough, must have provided competition for the pottery importers (Young
1975).
It is important to distinguish between pottery imported as
objects of trade and as items of personal possession. There can be no
doubting the existence of an extensive trade network encompassing
Oxfordshire, Nene Valley, Much Hadham and Argonne wares in Kent. However, as
with ‘African Red Slip’ ware, the possibility that the rarer wares were
purchased elsewhere in Britain or on the Continent and brought into Kent
amongst personal baggage should not be overlooked. A large volume of traffic
between Britain and the Continent is implied by Ammianus Marcellinus’
reference (xviii, 2, 3) to a regular movement of corn from Britain although
this may have been an exclusive cargo (Fulford 1978c); movement of troops
into Britain through Richborough is also attested in A.D. 360 under
Lupicinus (Ammianus, xx, 1; xx, 99) and in A.D. 368 under Theodosius (Zosimus,
iv, 35, 5). The Saxon Shore forts also presumably generated a
considerable amount of coastal trade, to which the extended distribution of
New Forest and Pevensey colour-coated wares in the Straits of Dover and
beyond may in some measure be ascribed (cf. Young 1977b); it is becoming
clear that these bases were not inhabited solely by military personnel, but
by others as well (Cunliffe 1977), and large extra-mural settlements could
also be attached to the forts (e.g. at Brancaster: Edwards and Green 1977).
BB1 from Dorset was also exported up the Channel to south-east Britain (see
the following section), and is one of several late Romano-British wares to
have been recorded on the Continent (Fulford 1977a; 1978c). It is noticeable
that several of these sites receiving Romano-British pottery are military
bases as well as civilian
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settlements including Oudenburg, Boulogne and Alet. However, this may
reflect a recovery bias towards sites of this type; in Britain,
Canterbury appears to have played a significant part in receiving
Continental fine wares, but the city is not known to have had any military
functions other than those appropriate to any walled town. It seems more
likely, therefore, that both military personnel and civilians played a part
in the private importation of fine pottery for their own use, and that the
distribution of the rarer wares may be a reflection of the places in which
these mobile individuals chose to live.
2. The Coarse Wares of West Kent
The fourth century witnessed a number of changes in the supply of
pottery to west Kent, which in sum amounted to a radical transformation from
the situation that had appertained since the late Hadrianic period. Three
main factors may be defined; the demise of BB2 and fine sandy burnished ware
production, both in north-west Kent and, seemingly, in southern Essex; a
synchronous increase in the importation of exotic coarse pottery, mainly of
slipped grey fine sandy ware from the Alice Holt-Farnham industry on the
borders of Hampshire and Surrey, but also of coarse buff sandy ware from the
same source, dense, buff Mayen ware from the Rhineland, BB1 from Dorset, and
grey fine sandy ware from Much Hadham in Hertfordshire; and thirdly, the
re-emergence of a hand-made, grog-tempered, ware in widespread use for jars
and dishes, after a period of some two hundred years since the disappearance
of hand-made, non-sandy wares as a regular feature of coarse pottery
assemblages (storage jars apart). These three factors all mark a break with
the traditions and commercial practices of the third century (4.IV.2) and,
although the rapidity of the changes cannot be closely monitored in the
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