‘Upchurch ware’ is a term which has been interpreted in
many ways in relation to the pottery of the north Kent industry (Monaghan
1982). Throughout its history, however, it has been applied consistently to
the fine reduced ware so characteristic of the collections of antiquaries
such as Woodruff (Monaghan 1983, Fabric II). The dating of the inception of
production of this ware, and its less common oxidised and white-slipped
counterparts, is complicated by the suspected presence of a rival concern in
east Kent (4.II.1) and by the ‘London Ware’ industry in the provincial
capital (Marsh and Tyers 1976; Marsh 1978). A late first-century origin for
all three potteries is certain, that at London possibly post-dating the
others by a decade or so (4.II.1; Pollard 1983a, 311—17).
The reduced sandy ware industries are still more difficult to
date, due in part to the conservative, and widespread, range of jars, bowls
and dishes that were their main lines. A biconical bowl from Bedlam’s
Bottom (4.II.4; Pollard 1983a, 319—20) and a necked jar or bowl from
Slayhills Marsh (ibid.) dateable to the late first or earlier second
century, may be amongst the earliest vessels produced by the eastern potters
in this ware, whilst vessel typology suggests an early to mid second-century
dating for the Chalk kiln site (cf. nos. 95, 110, 111, 113, 115, 182, 191;
Allen 1954, 1959; Pollard 1983a, 320). The earliest forms (nos. 90—94
here) could date back to the later first century in wheel-thrown, reduced
sandy wares, however (4.II.2).
The contexts for the emergence of the Thameside-
Medway industry have been discussed above (4.II-III), and their
organisation, so far as it can be deduced, below (6.IV-V in particular). The
Upchurch Marshes fine ware industry in its earliest (late first to early
second century) phase, it can be argued, drew on a wide range of sources for
its inspiration, including Gallo-Belgic, indigenous ‘Belgic’
(Aylesford-Swarling) and samian wares. White-slipped wares are generally
rare, as indeed are flagons in
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general, in this phase, so that it cannot be said with confidence that the
Upchurch industry grew out of the pre-Flavian ‘Hoo’ workshop.
3. Developments in the second Century
The repertoire of the Upchurch Marshes fine ware industry concentrated
upon beakers, with apparently smaller output of jars, necked and open bowls,
and flasks (4.II.1, 4.III.1, 4.IV.1). Segmental bowls (nos. 130—132),
early third-century samian derivatives (nos. 162—166) and combed butt- and
pedestal beakers (e.g. nos. 122—123) appear to have been more a feature of
the putative east Kent industry (see also Green 1981). Painted ware was a
minor product of the late first to early second century (nos. 138—141)
with a local distribution (Fig. 26). The Hadrianic period witnessed a marked
reduction in the range of types in the industry, with reduced ware beakers
and oxidised and white-slipped ware flagons (e.g. nos. 155—161) dominant
amongst Upchurch-type fine wares in north Kent. It cannot be positively
demonstrated that the flagons were products of the Medway, rather than of
more easterly, potters, but the beakers, of which the ‘poppyhead’ is the
most common (e.g. nos. 145, 146, 150), certainly were (Tyers 1978;
Monaghan 1983, nos. 40—58).
The reduced sandy wares of the Thames-Medway area as a whole in
the first instance almost certainly adopted the forms of their ‘Aylesford-Swarling’
antecedents (nos. 91—94). The introduction of the black-burnished ware
style to the south-eastern potteries is something of a mystery, since the
Dorset progenitor (BB1) occurs only occasionally here until the very end of
the second or even the third century and then mostly in London and its
suburbs (Tyers and Marsh 1978). Farrar (1973, 202) suggested that BB2
represented a ‘Romanised offshoot of the
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