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The Roman Pottery of Kent
by Dr Richard J. Pollard  -  Chapter 4  page 145
Doctoral thesis completed in 1982, published 1988

of the ‘Fel. Temp. Reparatio’ series, dateable to A.D. 350—353 and c. A.D. 354-364, respectively (Casey 1980, 44)) excludes BB2, which supports the hypothesis that use of this ware had ceased by the latter half of the fourth century. Clearly more dating evidence is needed, if this hypothesis is to be verified. The absence of fine sandy burnished wares of late second- and third-century ‘north-west Kent’ types from Bexley and the Lullingstone deposits suggests that these and BB2 disappeared from use contemporaneously. It is possible that pressure from the expanding Alice Holt industry, which also sought to market fine slipped reduced wares in west Kent, played a major part, as BB2 itself may have done in the late second-century decline of the Canterbury grey ware industry. However, as with the Canterbury situation, the discontinuation of production of certain wares cannot be equated with a total abandonment of production of grey sandy wares, for such wares, from whatever source, continued to comprise a significant element in later fourth-century coarse pottery assemblages.
   The differentiation, and allocation to sources, of fourth-century grey sandy pottery is no less a problem than in earlier periods; it has, however, been brought into sharp focus by the detailed studies of the late Roman grey ware industries of Oxfordshire (Young 1977a), the New Forest (Fulford 1975a) and Alice Holt-Farnham (Lyne and Jefferies 1979). Attempts to distinguish the grey ware products of the New Forest and Alice Holt-Farnham potteries have so far proved unsuccessful (Peacock 1967; Fulford 1975b), but this is of less importance to Kent (where the extreme rarity of New Forest colour-coated wares carried the implication that grey wares of that industry would also have been rare, if not unknown) than to Sussex and more westerly regions (e.g. Green 1977, 157). The occurrence of Oxfordshire grey wares in Kent is also most improbable (Young 1977a, 207—8). However, grey wares from the Much Hadham kilns may have been distributed south of the Thames, and it is likely that production of such

pottery also continued within Kent (see also the following section). The fourth-century accumulation in the Chalk cellar incorporated some 39 per cent unslipped reduced sandy wheel-thrown wares (42 per cent of coarse wares, by vessel rim equivalence), plus 14 per cent (16 per cent) slipped ‘Alice Holt-Farnham’ grey wares. The former included a single characteristic Much Hadham grey ware type, a bead-and-flange dish with a wavy line tooled on the upper interior (unpublished). The great majority of the grey wares are of fine or medium coarseness (cf. Orton 1977a), and additional Much Hadham grey ware vessels may also be represented. The ‘swan’s neck’ pendant roll-rim jar (cf. no. 203 here) is, however, absent, as it is from the Bexley and Lullingstone groups (cf. 4.IV.2). Unslipped grey wares may also have been exported to Kent from the Alice Holt-Farnham industry, where fine sandy angular and hooked-rim necked -jars were manufactured until c. A.D. 330 (Lyne and Jefferies 1979, Class 3C.2, 4-8). If the North Kent industry continued to function until the mid-fourth century, it is probable that plain sandy necked jars, produced alongside BB2 as in earlier centuries, satisfied the bulk of the local demand up until the discontinuation of production of the parallel Alice Holt forms.
   The majority of grey sandy unslipped wares in west Kent in the fourth century (at least in the first half) may well be local products therefore. The forms are mostly necked round or angular roll-rim jars (e.g. Philp 1973, nos. 394, 402, 408 and 410 from Darenth), with lesser numbers of everted recurved and necked burnished jars, dog-dishes and bead-and-flange dishes. These also occur at Bexley, where BB2 and third-century North Kent fine sandy burnished wares are absent, and Alice Holt-Farnham slipped ware present. There is also a number of slipped and unslipped ‘Drag. 38’. flanged bowls in Kent which do not belong either to Alice Holt-Farnham or the third century north-west Kent/south Essex industries, including an example from Lullingstone

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