Kent Ceramics Study Group
by Christopher St. John Breen, B.Sc.
The fourth Pottery Workshop was held on Saturday 7th November 1987, at Bromley Museum, Orpington, by kind permission of the curator, Dr. Alan Tyler.
The programme consisted of looking at and talking about the surface finds of pottery from Poverest Road, Orpington, excavated by Peter Tester during 1965-68. All the pottery was displayed so that it could be studied in hand and a talk was given by Christopher Breen on the range of fabrics and forms present. Romano-British sherds from the site and its immediate area came into the Museum's collection from three main sources. The earliest was Arthur Eldridge, who collected items between the 1920s and 1940s recovering material from service trenches and holes on, across and adjacent to the site. Some sherds are marked, in pencil, with the findspot and month/year date. The date range of the Eldridge sherds spans the whole of the Romano-British period (Arch.Cant. Vol.60 (1947) 101).
The second source came from the excavations conducted by Peter Tester during the 1960s (Arch.Cant. Vol.83 (1968) 125-150; Vol.84 (1969) 39-77; Vol.93 (1977) 201-202) which produced large quantities of Romano-British pottery sherds. Many were context recorded and these have been rebagged and boxed as such during work on the site collection by the winter in July and August 1987 at the Museum.
The final group came from further excavations between 1971 and 1978 by Susann Palmer who brought to light a further large group of Romano-British sherds, part of which was reported upon by Christopher Green. Her site report received unfavorable reviews in London Arch., Arch.Cant. and K.A.R. and this has had the effect of hiding the ceramic wealth which the site has yielded to date.
The surface finds alone point to the site, only a small area of which has been sampled by excavation, as being the most important in the Cray Valley while the range of late Romano-British ceramics stress its importance when compared with all other sites in Kent known to date.
Amongst the surface finds were the following:
Samian Ware: DR.15/17, 29 and 18
Ring and Dot Beaker
Rodwell type 2C bowl, with block stamp decor but no ring and dot decor.
Black Burnished 2 Ware from the Cliff Peninsula including bead rim bowl, dish with and without incised acute lattice decor, everted rim jars, outcurved rim jars with reserved zone decors, folded wall beakers, plain rim bowl, dish, plain and decorated, plain rim with single incised line on exterior bowl and dish lids.
Black Burnished 1 Ware from Dorset including everted rim jars, plain rim bowls and flanged rim bowl and dish.
Alice Holt/Farnham Ware includes over twenty different jar forms and a good range of flanged rim bowls
Otford Kiln Ware - a bowl sherd
Patch grove Ware - a good range of the main jar form with horiz. row/s of stab. decor, the earlier plain form, bead rim jar and rims of jars which are variants of the common rim style.
Colour Coated Wares - mainly from Central Gaul (Lezoux), Trier, Colchester and the Nene Valley
Handmade Kent Grog Ware - dozens of rims of simple outcurved rim jars and flanged rim bowls and dishes.
Mortaria - includes Brockley Hill, Soller, Nene Valley and Oxford.
Oxford Wares - includes parchment ware, black on white and grey coarse wares and 46% of Youngs form series, the largest known range of any Kent site.
Upchurch/Slayhills Area Wares - the fine fabrics of this industry are represented as is tlie Hoo flagon fabric.
Flagon types such as Disc Rimmed, Disc Necked, Cup Ring and Pinched Mouth are present- from sources such as Hoo, Brockley Hill, Nene Valley and Much Hadham.
Overall the surface finds collection indicates that Susann Palmer's viewpoint that the site was vacated c.AD 370 now has to be set aside and consideration given to the idea that the RB site existed into the early 5th century. The reasons for taking this view are compelling, as the sheer volume and vessel form extent of the later RB wares from contexts speak for themselves.
Future work on this site should aim to capture secure horizons, whether such layers will prove free of disturbance is quite another matter altogether. The spread of the site, its location and what is known of the nature and depth of the Romano-British layers suggests a settlement adjacent to an inland quay on the River Cray.
