On "Romano-British" fictile vessels from Preston, near Wingham

FROM PRESTON NEAR WINGHAM. 51 to some examples he gave in Archceologia Cantiana, vol. xi., p. 115. Be this as it may, there appear to have been (nearer Preston Church) some rather curious cases in which a number of vessels were found close together; in one grave seven or eight had been put with one interment, in a gravel pit near Dearson Wood (about a quarter of a mile distant). The pottery described as Dpchurch ware, found here, is all of a coarse kind. I have several specimens of a much better article found in Kent. Mr. P. Gr. Hilton Price described in the Journal of the Anthropological Institute, vol. v., p. 301, " a Eomano-British " cemetery at Seaford in Sussex, where similar pottery was found. Mr. Price remarks, " In some instances black patches were observed in whioh fragments of burnt pottery, flints, pieces of charcoal, and charred bones were found; most of these patches contained one or more iron nails, and these patches marked the spots where interments had been made." Mr. Price suggests that after the body had been burnt on the funeral pyre, the ashes were collected and placed on a cloth or in a napkin, and fastened with iron nails, as he supposes, marking the interments of the poorer class, whose friends were not in a position to afford the expense of a funeral urn. In several places in the Preston gravel pits I have met with somewhat similar instances, and it seems probable that interments had been made near the dwellings, and not collected in one cemetery; if this is so, it may account for the interments having been scattered over so large an area. The examples I have figured are taken from the best preserved specimens, and only one example is given of each character. I have found in addition many duplicate specimens, and a great many fragments of others. In 1872, I made water-colour drawings of many of the best specimens from Mr. Goodson's gravel pit, and they are now in the possession of Mrs. Groodson of Cleve Court in the Isle of Thanet. That lady has the terra-cotta rabbit, and she had also a nice specimen of an entire glass vessel, about six inches in height, which I have not been able to figure; it was of the usual square moulded form, with truncated neck, a small mouth, and sinall handle; it would hold about one pint. Several pieces of iron, probably nails, and a bronze piece of a spur (or something very like one) were found in the Dearson pit. I will now describe the drawings which are all made to one scale:— 1. A fine oval blue vessel found in the Dearson pit; it contained burnt bones, V 2