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IX. THE ASSOCIATION OF POTTERY
PRODUCTION WITH OTHER
INDUSTRIES
In the preceding section, pottery manufacture has been treated in
isolation from other industries. In terms of co-operation in production,
as opposed to vulnerability to socio-economic fluctuation, this may to a
great extent reflect the situation in which the potter worked. However, it
would be misleading to overlook evidence for the joint operation of
potteries with at least two other industries, both of which shared with
the potter the basic skills of working the clay medium: brick and tile
manufacture and salt-winning.
The similarities between pottery and tile manufacture and
salt-winning are two-fold. First, all three require warm, dry weather, for
the drying of ceramics and the evaporation of salt. The creation of an
artificial climate by constructing drying sheds is not attested either
ethnographically or archaeologically for the household industry and
individual workshop models of ceramic production hypothesized for the
north Kent potteries, implying summer seasonal activity only. The second
similarity arises from the first: the industries are compatible with
farming, as they occupy the slack part of the agricultural cycle (Bradley
1978, 67—9).
1. Brick and Tile Manufacture
The intensity with which this aspect of Roman industry has been
studied in recent years is reflected in the number of publications readily
accessible to the researcher. The task of the present author has been made
much simpler by the works of Brodribb (1969, 1979), McWhirr and Viner
(1978), McWhirr (1979a), Peacock (1977b) and others.
Kilns producing ceramic building materials have been found on
only three sites in Kent, two outside Canterbury (Jenkins 1956a, 1960) and
one close to the Eccles villa (Detsicas 1967, 170—4). Monaghan (1987,
28) records
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‘a probable tile kiln’ on the Medway Marshes. In addition, military
stamps of the Classis Britannica are known from a number of military
and industrial sites and one villa (Folkestone) in Kent, East Sussex and the
Pas-de-Calais (Peacock 1977b) and of the Cohors I Baetasiorum from
Reculver (Hassall 1977). Peacock has suggested that his fabric 2 Classis
Britannica bricks and tiles were produced in the south Romney
Marsh-Camber area (Peacock 1977b, 242). A tile kiln and pottery wasters have
been excavated at Great Cansiron in the central Weald (Rudling 1986; Cawood
1986).
The association of building ceramics and pottery production in
a military context is known at several sites in Britain, such as Holt
(Grimes 1930), Brampton in Cumbria (McWhirr 1979a, 111—19) and Grimescar,
Yorks (ibid., 182—3). However, there is no evidence for, and
circumstantially weighty evidence against, military pottery production in
association with tileries in Kent.
In civilian contexts the production of both classes of ceramics
on a single site has been suggested for several sites: these include Park
Street (Herts.), Little Hadham (Herts.), Colney Street (Herts.), Minety
(Wilts.), Eccles and Canterbury (McWhirr 1979a) as well as Great Cansiron.
Canterbury is unique on two counts: first, it is the only place where
co-operation in production, if not production by the same individual, is
firmly attested. The Area I site at St. Stephen’s Road comprised a pottery
kiln and a tile kiln/drying chamber sharing a stokehole pit (Jenkins 1956a,
41—50). The use of tiles and bricks in the construction of pottery
kilns is commonplace, but need not imply the same level of co-operation. The
second feature unique to Canterbury is the proximity of tileries to the town
itself, Kiln II at Whitehall Gardens (Jenkins 1960, 154—6) and that at St.
Stephen’s Road both lying within 1 km. of the later walled area. The
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