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Detsicas 1964, 122—3) is normally a feature of
military establishments; a parallel at Ashtead villa in west Surrey
(Lowther. 1927; 1929; 1930), dated to the later first century, is
associated with a major tilery whose products were distributed throughout
Surrey and to places as distant as Verulamium and Chelmsford, perhaps by
peripatetic craftsmen, in the Flavian period (id., 1948). Eccles
ware has not been recorded away from the villa itself (Greene 1979a, 85),
but local consumption at Rochester and elsewhere need not be detectable in
the extremely small pre-Flavian assemblages extant from the town and the
Medway valley. Potential military consumers, supplied via the Medway, are
postulated by Swan, as at Otford (1984, 389). Peacock (1982, 10) envisaged
a commercial role for estate production, and it may be that both Otford
and Eccles represent estate interests.
3. Other Estates
The potential involvement of villa owners or managers in pottery
manufacture has been surmised in several cases above (e.g. 6.V. 1). It
must be stressed that the organisation of the estates themselves is
subject to speculation. Production directed from the villa authority may
be inferred in particular where the repertoire is of a specialised nature
or where long-distance trade is indicated, that is to say where the
potential for profits is greatest, but cannot be attested positively in
any instance. The cases of Otford and Eccles apart, it is considered that
workshop models, individual or nucleated, are best applied to the kiln-
and wheel-using potteries in Kent.
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VII. RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN POTTERIES IN
KENT AND
BEYOND:
STYLISTIC
CONSIDERATIONS
Close affinities in ranges of types can be recognised between the
Thameside-Cliffe peninsula BB2 and grey ware potteries and those of south
Essex and Colchester (Pollard 1983b, 134—8). The kiln sites of south Essex
have yet to be published in detail, with the exception of Mucking (Jones and
Rodwell 1973), the conclusions drawn from which have subsequently been
revised (M.U. Jones, R. Birss, R. Jefferies, pers. comms.). The south Essex
sites were not included in Williams’ programme of petrological analysis of
BB2 (1977), or in Monaghan’s neutron activation analysis of BB2 and grey
wares (1982). It is likely, pending full publication, that south Essex and
north Kent potters were in direct communication, but operated within
mutually discreet circuits of itinerancy (see below). Farrar (1973, 101) has
suggested that a merchant concern — a negotiator artis cretanae —
was involved in the trade up the North Sea coast (cf. Fulford 1981), and it
may have been this middleman activity that provided the link between the
potteries of the Thames and Colchester and ensured that, for the ‘export’
market at least, they produced a common range of types.
The mechanisms that determined the styles of pottery produced in Roman
Britain are understood very imperfectly. The influence of popular wares such
as samian or BB1 is often invoked when the derivations of forms are
discussed, and military preferences are also popular determinants. The ‘new
wave’ of fashion defined as BB2 is held commonly to have been derived from
BB1, presumably under the stimulus of the latter’s success in capturing
northern markets, although in south-eastern Britain BB1 is extremely rare
until the third century. This implies either a degree of awareness amongst
potters of their colleagues’ activities, or the intervention
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