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thought to be a ‘household industry’ product requiring the minimum of
labour, skill, and equipment (q.v. 6.1.) may have been a reaction to
a decline in the output of potters producing sandy wheel-thrown, kiln-fired
ware, which itself might have resulted from some changes in landlord-tenant
relations and in the economic climate, which proved detrimental to
labour-intensive, specialist industries. This line of thought is pursued
elsewhere (Pollard 1983a, 519—35).
The Oxfordshire kilns appear to have achieved an almost
complete monopoly of the market for gritted mortaria in west Kent in the
fourth century. The vessels from the mid fourth-century Lullingstone pits
(Meates et al., 1950, no. 21; Meates et al. 1952, no.
90) and occupation level south of the Temple-Mausoleum (Pollard 1987, Group
XL, Fabric 35) are all in Oxfordshire white ware, while the five
vessels found on the latest floor of the ‘Deep Room’ at Lullingstone
include three in this ware and two in Oxfordshire white-slipped ware (Meates
et al. 1952, nos. 39—43). Vessels from the destruction and
post-destruction deposits are also predominantly in Oxfordshire wares,
including a red colour-coated vessel possibly used as a receptacle for paint
(ibid., no. 61; Meates 1979, 54). One Nene Valley buff ware mortarium
may also have come from this sequence of deposits (Meates 1953, no. 146).
The vessels from layers 5 and 6 at Chalk are solely Oxfordshire products, as
were all of the mortaria from the third- to fourth-century layers at
Springhead and Rochester that could, on the adducement of parallels from
Canterbury and elsewhere, be ascribed to the mid-fourth century or later,
with the exceptions of a handful of oxidised Much Hadham ware sherds. The
main form used in Kent in the fourth century has a high bead and short,
thick flange folded back onto itself or moulded (Young 1977a, M22, WC7 and
C100). ‘Wall-sided’ Oxfordshire red colour-coated ware vessels derived
from the samian form Drag. 45 (ibid., C97) also occur, and ‘East
Kent’ vessels (4.IV.3) may have
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been used in the early part of the century. Although Oxfordshire wares
predominate amongst mortaria with trituration grit, it is conceivable that
vessels without this feature may also have been used for similar functions.
The hemispherical flanged bowl of ‘Drag. 38’ type is formally
well-suited to the task if the mortarium was cradled in the arm, and
Oxfordshire vessels of this form (Young 1977a, C51—2) sometimes
exhibit marked abrasion of the interior slip. A heavily built, hand-made
sandy red-black ‘Drag. 38’ vessel from the uppermost post-destruction
level above the bathing establishment at Lullingstone (Pollard 1987, Group
XXXVII(c), Fabric 59) could well have performed this function;
perhaps significantly, it was burnished only on the exterior. Conversely,
gritted mortaria might be used for purposes other than food preparation. The
‘paint-pot’ from Lullingstone, a broken vessel mended with rivets prior
to its final use, has already been mentioned; in addition, Meates (1979, 39)
has proposed that the five vessels found on the floor of the ‘Deep Room’
may have been used as balers for the well in the floor.
There is virtually no information on fourth- to early
fifth-century amphorae in west Kent. A rim sherd from layer 3 at Chalk
(Peacock 1977d, 298, no. 6) may represent a late import of unknown origin,
whilst the presence of Dorset BB1 dishes of mid-fourth century-plus form in
the Holborough tumulus (Jessup et al. 1954, fig. 14, nos. 4 and 7)
suggests that the amphorae were interred in this period but not that they
necessarily were imported in the fourth century. The rim of a hollow-foot
amphora was recovered from Lullingstone (Pollard 1987, Fabric 80).
3. The Coarse Wares of East Kent
Fourth-century pottery has been recovered from a considerable number of
sites in east Kent
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