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burials around Milton Creek, Sittingbourne (Roach Smith 1852; Wheeler 1932,
96-8; Kelly 1964). The social stratum that the villas and interments
represent may well have been instrumental in establishing, or at least
encouraging, the fine ware industry, with Rochester, the Thames estuary and
Watling Street providing a strong potential distribution network. Second
century 'poppyhead' beakers from this industry were exported to the
northern frontier (J. Monaghan, pers. comm.) and distribution in south-east
Britain may have been widespread (cf. Monaghan 1982). Potting may not have
been 'the primary means of subsistence', and the existence of such
indicators of an intensive investment in production as drying sheds may
never be proved. However, given the proximity of contemporary villas, it is
worth considering whether landlord-tenant relationships might have played a
part in the organisation of the industry, the villa patrons determining the
nature of the output and controlling its marketing with an eye to profit.
The comparatively high value of a fine ware such as 'Upchurch ware' may
have rendered the pottery acceptable as rent payment in kind. The Hartlip
villa was certainly an important consumer of 'Upchurch ware'.
There is evidence for a differentiation of production between
Thameside and the Cliffe peninsula on the one hand, and the Upchurch Marshes
on the other, in the second century. It would appear that fine pottery
manufacture was generally confined to the latter (although 'very glossy
black jars' are noted by Monaghan (1982) from a supposed kiln site near
Cliffe (Hutchings 1966) and BB2 to the former (Monaghan 1982, 45). Coarse
sandy wares were made in both districts and include virtually identical
necked jars with tooled linear decoration on the shoulder.
The involvement of villa-estates in the Thameside and Cliffe
peninsula potteries is less discernible than on the Upchurch Marshes;
although the Chalk sites do lie close to
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a nucleus of buildings (Johnston 1972; Harker 1975), no evidence of
substantial buildings has been found around the peninsula itself. However,
Williams (1977, 21) considered that 'by the late second or early third
century, a number of small kilns situated in Kent were also supplying BB2
vessels to the northern military garrisons', including Cooling (the Joyden's
Wood site has since been generally discounted as a production locus by
Detsicas (1977b, 239, and 1983, 156-7), Monaghan (1982, 33-7) and
Swan (1984, 387). Results of analysis of Oakleigh Farm, Higham samples were
not available at the time of publication (Catherall 1983). The presence of a
small group of fine, untempered, reduced necked bulbous beakers (cf. no.
152) amongst the dumps of BB2 and sandy grey ware waste material at Cooling
suggests that the virtual monopoly of production of fine ware forms held by
the Upchurch Marshes potteries may have been eroded in the late Antonine to
Severan period. The expansion in both marketing and repertoire permits the
classification of the Thameside-Cliffe peninsula industry as a rural
nucleation from around the reign of Commodus into the Severan era, if not
beyond.
2. Canterbury
The intensification, and diversification, of pottery manufacture in the
industrial quarters of the civitas capital in the mid-Flavian years
represents a classic example of the development of an urban nucleated
industry along the lines hypothesized by Peacock (1982) and conforms to a
broad pattern of first to second century urban-orientated potteries
discerned by Fulford (1977b). The expansion coincided broadly with the
construction of the theatre (around A.D. 80-90: Frere 1970), and with
Agricola's reforms of the Imperial tax collection system, which
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