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provenance (e.g. Monaghan 1983), and one is forced to conclude, with
Monaghan, that 'it is best to disregard all work prior to. . . 1954 and
start afresh' (Monaghan 1982, 31; Noel Hume 1954).
The western part of the north Kent potteries has also suffered
at the hands of man. Kiln sites have been recorded in general either in
salvage work or rescue excavations in advance of industrial activities (e.g.
Jessup 1928; Allen 1954; Catherall 1983) or of tidal erosion (Swan
1984), or during investigations by individuals where enthusiasm in the field
has sadly not been matched by that at the desk. John Gillam's recognition
of a black-burnished ware (BB2) tradition strong in northern Britain but
emanating from south-eastern potteries (Gillam 1960; 1973; Gillam and Mann
1970) has focused attention on the north-west Kent industry (e.g. Farrar
1973; Williams 1977), whilst Monaghan has taken up the challenge of
unravelling the mysteries of 'Upchurch ware' and the Medway marshes
industry in a broader study of the Upchurch and Thameside industries
(Monaghan 1982; 1983; 1987).
Excavations in south Essex have revealed a number of sites,
including Thurrock, Mucking, Orsett, and Billericay (e.g. Drury 1973; Jones
and Rodwell 1973; Rodwell 1974, Toller 1980; Goodburn 1978), where pottery
akin to the products of the Thameside and Cliffe peninsula was made. Without
exception, interim reports alone have been published at the time of writing
(Spring 1985); pending full publication of these sites, this history must be
accepted as an interim statement.
2. Origins
The earliest known production dates to within later first century B.C.
to mid-first century A.D. parameters, the climate of opinion favouring the
upper end of this range
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(Noel Hume 1954; Monaghan 1982; Swan 1984). The sites lie on the Upchurch
Marshes (Noel Hume 1954; Jackson 1962; 1972/3) and are associated with
coarse flint-tempered reduced ware jars often with oblique furrowing. These
are broadly contemporary with a hand-made sandy ware found in quantity
during trenching for a gas pipeline across Broomhey Farm, Cooling, on the
Cliffe peninsula, in 1978. The fabric is hard, and harsh to the touch,
sand-gritted with lesser amounts of shell, grog, water-worn gravel, iron ore
and mica. It is fired brown or grey, with brown, grey or buff surfaces often
patchy in colour. The forms (nos. 1-9; from Pollard forthcoming, d, to be
published with a report on excavations by Miles - Miles 1973; Miles and
Syddell 1967 - on a neighbouring site). are utilitarian, but the
combination of ?knife-trimmed bead rim and rilled body (e.g. nos. 2, 3) is
sufficiently distinctive to enable a distribution to be plotted (Fig. 20
"Cooling" sand-and-shell) suggestive of manufacture on the Cliffe
peninsula or the Medway marshes. Contacts were extensive enough for one
vessel to come to rest at Canterbury (Bennett et al. 1982, no. 296).
Shelly wares were produced on the north side of the Thames in the mid- to
late first century A.D. (at Mucking: Jones 1973, and Tilbury: Drury and
Rodwell 1973) with an exchange area confined in the main to southern Essex
(Jones 1972; Fig. 20, Essex 'graffito' in the present volume).
The potteries so far described were essentially household
concerns (6.III) making 'kitchen' utility wares. A large group of
white-slipped vessels, mostly flagons, found on the Medway estuary at Hoo
(Blumstein 1956) has been taken to imply a 'probable pottery kiln nearby'
working in the Claudio-Neronian period (Swan 1984, 403). The vessels
represent an intrusive element in local traditions, and immigrant craftsmen
may be suspected, as in the Medway valley above Rochester at Eccles
(Detsicas 1977a).
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