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
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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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