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The Roman Pottery of Kent
by Dr Richard J. Pollard  -  Chapter 4  page 37
Doctoral thesis completed in 1982, published 1988

nevertheless occurs in widely-scattered locations, such as the High Rocks hillfort site in the Weald (Money 1968) and the rural industrial area near Cooling (Dickinson, in Pollard forthcoming, b). The Neronian-Vespasianic period, c. A.D. 55—80, witnessed massive importation of South Gaulish samian ware to southern Britain, as studies of stamped and decorated vessels indicate (Bird and Marsh 1978; Bird 1982b, and forthcoming). The forms are predominantly shallow dishes, bowls and cups. First-century samian of Lezoux origin also occurs in the south-east but very rarely (e.g. Bird and Marsh 1978). These were complemented by beakers in colour-coated wares primarily with ‘rough-cast’ decoration: particles of sand or fine clay scattered on the surfaces prior to slipping. Paradoxically, the major supplier of these beakers to Britain was not the South Gaulish industry that was responsible for the vast majority of pre-Flavian samian, but the Lyon factories on the upper Rhóne (Greene 1979a). However, the beakers, and the cups with which they are associated, are exceedingly rare in comparison with samian products, despite being produced throughout the Claudio-Neronian period. Vessels in Lyon ware regularly occur in pre-and early-Flavian contexts on the major urban sites of London, Southwark and Canterbury, and appear also to have been commonplace at Rich-borough. Elsewhere Lyon ware has been recorded by the present author on only four sites: Rochester, Wingham, Springhead and Buckland Hill (Fig. 19) to which may be added sherds from Eccles and Faversham (Greene 1979a, 42). Three of these sites are villas of Neronian or Flavian foundation, whilst Rochester was an urban site and Springhead a ‘small town’, with a religious centre founded probably in the later Flavian or Trajanic period (Penn 1959). The status of Buckland Hill is uncertain. The unusual lead-glazed Central Gaulish ware, also known to British archaeologists as St. Rémy ware, is the only other pre-Flavian import to have achieved an extensive distribution (Fig. 19). It was apparently considerably less common than 

Lyon ware, however, for example at Canterbury and Southwark (Bird et al. 1978b), although the number of occurrences of flagons in funerary contexts suggests that these forms may have found especial favour as votive objects. Other forms in this ware include cups, beakers and bowls (Greene 1978a, b; 1979a). The colour-coated products of pre-Flavian industries in South Gaul, Central Gaul, Spain and the Lower Rhineland are extremely rare finds in Britain. Richborough is paramount in importance as a location for such discoveries, a reflection no doubt of its function as a military supply base and official port of entry to the Province in the first century A.D. (Cunliffe 1968; Greene 1979a). That these exceptional finds were personal possessions of base personnel rather than traded objects is suggested by the virtual absence of these wares from the nearby town of Canterbury, which carried out a trade in coarse pottery with Richborough (see below). Central Gaulish rough-cast ware alone of the minor colour-coated wares of Richborough has been recognised in the town, and even that could be Flavian rather than pre-Flavian in date, as the cup forms diagnostic of the latter period have not been recorded; all recognisable finds are of beakers, forms produced in both periods. ‘Pompeian Red’ platters with internal slip were also probably imported from Central Gaul in the pre-Flavian and later periods (Peacock 1977c, Fabric 3), occurring in Claudio-Neronian contexts at Canterbury and Richborough; Mediterranean suppliers of this ware are also suspected to have been operating in the period up to c. A.D. 75 (ibid., 159).
   The dominant fine wares on most sites in Kent, certainly in the eastern region, are indigenous grog-, sand- and flint-tempered products of ‘Aylesford-Swarling’ and ‘Gallo-Belgic’ derivation. These include globular, biconical and butt-shaped beakers with corrugated, grooved, cordoned and fine combed decoration (e.g. nos. 32 and 33), and flagons (nos. 35—38). The latter two

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