CHAPTER XVIII.

THE ROMAN AND ROMANO-BRITISH POTTERIES.

From time to time the labourer, in draining or planting in the Forest, digs down upon pieces of earthenware, whilst in the turfy spots the mole throws up the black fragments in her mound of earth. The names, too, of Crockle—Crock Kiln—and Panshard Hill, have from time immemorial marked the site of at least two potteries. Yet even these had escaped all notice until Mr. Bartlett, in 1853, gave an account of his excavations, and showed the large scale on which the Romans carried on their works, and the beauty of their commonest forms and shapes.[250]

Since then both Mr. Bartlett and myself have at different times opened various other sites, and some short notice of their contents may, perhaps, not be without interest.

Fifty years ago, when digging the holes for the gate-posts at the south-west corner of Anderwood Enclosure, the workmen discovered some perfect urns and vases. These have, of course, long since been lost. But as the place was so far distant from the potteries at Crockle, I determined to re-open it. The site, however, had been much disturbed. Enough though could be seen to show that there had once been a small kiln, round which were scattered for three or four yards, in a black mould of about a foot and a half in depth, the rims, and handles, and bottoms of vessels of Romano-British ware. The specimens were entirely confined to the commonest forms, all ornamentation being absent, and the ware itself of a very coarse kind, the paste being grey and gritty.

About a mile and a half off, in Oakley Enclosure, close to the Bound Beech, I was, however, more fortunate. Here the kiln was perfect. It was circular, and measured six yards in circumference, its shape being well-defined by small hand-formed masses of red brick-earth. The floor, about two feet below the natural surface of the ground, was paved with a layer of sand-stones, some of them cut into a circular shape, so as to fit the kiln, the upper surfaces being tooled, whilst the under remained in their original state. As at Anderwood, the ware was broken into small fragments, and was scattered round the kiln for five or six yards. The specimens were here, too, of the coarsest kind, principally pieces of bowls and shallow dishes, and, perhaps, though of a different age, not so unlike as might at first sight be supposed to the

“Sympuvium Numæ, nigrumque catinum, Et Vaticano fragiles de monte patellæ.”

These appear to be the only kilns which, perhaps from the unfitness of the clay, were worked in this part of the Forest, and were used only in manufacturing the most necessary utensils in daily life.

Of far greater extent are the works at Sloden, covering several acres. All that remains of these, too, are, I am sorry to say, mere fragments of a coarse black earthenware. And although I opened the ground at various points, I never could meet with anything perfect. Yet the spot is not without great interest. The character and nature of the south-western slope exactly coincide with Colt Hoare’s description of Knook Down and the Stockton Works.[251] Here are the same irregularities in the ground, the same black mould, the same coarse pottery, the same banks, and mounds, and entrenchments, all indicating the settlement of a Romano-British population. Half-way down the hill, not far from two large mounds marking the sites of kilns, stretch trenches and banks showing the spaces within which, perhaps, the potters’ huts stood, or where the cultivated fields lay, whilst at one place five banks meet in a point, and between two of them appear some slight traces of what may have been a road.[252]

At the bottom of the hill, but more to the south-westward, stands the Lower Hat, where the same coarse ware covers the earth, and where the presence of nettles and chickweed shows that the place has once been inhabited.

The Crockle and Island Thorn potteries lie about a mile to the north-east. At Crockle there were, before Mr. Bartlett opened them, three mounds, varying in circumference from one hundred and eighty to seventy yards, each, as I have ascertained, containing at least three or four, but probably more, kilns. As the lowest part of the smallest and easternmost mound had not been entirely explored, I determined to open this piece. Beginning at the extremity, we soon came upon a kiln, which, like the others discovered by Mr. Bartlett, only showed its presence by the crumbling red brick earth. An enormous old oak-stump had grown close beside it, and around the bole were heaped the drinking-vessels and oil-flasks, which its now rotten roots had once pierced.

Nothing could better show, as the excavation proceeded, the former state of the works. Here were imbedded in the stiff yellow putty-like clay, of which they were made, masses of earthenware, the charcoal, with which they were fired, still sticking to their sides—pieces of vitreous-looking slag, and a grey line of cinders mixed with the red brick earth of the kiln. The ware remained just as it was cast aside by the potter. You might tell by the bulging of the sides, and the bright metallic glaze of the vessels, how the workman had overheated the kiln;—see, too, by the crookedness of the lines, where his hand had missed its stroke. All was here. The potter’s finger-marks were still stamped upon the bricks. Here lay the brass coin which he had dropped, and the tool he had forgotten, and the plank upon which he had tempered the clay.[253]

The Island Thorn potteries had been so thoroughly opened by Mr. Bartlett, that I there made but little further explorations, and must refer my readers to his account,[254] only here adding that the ware scarcely differed, except in shape and patterns, from that at Crockle.

About a mile westward stands Pitt’s Enclosure, where in three different places rise low mounds, two of which, since the publication of his account, have been opened by Mr. Bartlett, but from which he only obtained fragments.

The third, which I explored in 1862, was remarkable for the number of kilns placed close together, separated from each other only by mounds of the natural soil. In all, there were five, ranged in a semicircle, and paved with irregular masses of sandstone. They appear to have been used at the time at which they were left for firing different sorts of ware. Close to the westernmost kiln, we found only the necks of various unguent bottles, whilst the easternmost oven seems to have been employed in baking only a coarse red panchion, on which a cover (_operculum_), with a slight knob for a handle, fitted. Of these last we discovered an enormous quantity, apparently flung away into a deep hole.

Near the central kilns we found one or two new shapes and patterns, but they were, I am sorry to say, very much broken, the ware not being equal in strength or fineness to that at Crockle. The most interesting discovery, however, were two distinct heaps of white and fawn-coloured clay and red earth, placed ready for mixing, and a third of the two worked together, fit for the immediate use of the potter.

Near to these works stretch, on a smaller scale, the same embankments which mark the Sloden potteries. One is particularly noticeable, measuring twenty-two feet in width, and running in the shape of the letter Z. In the central portion I cut two trenches, but could discover nothing but a circle of charcoal, looking as if it was the remains of a workman’s fire, placed on the level of the natural soil. Another trench I opened at the extreme end, as also various pits near the embankment, but failed to find anything further.

At Ashley Rails, also, close by, stand two more mounds, which cover the remains of more ware. These I only very partially opened, for the black mould was very shallow, and the specimens the same as I had found in Pitt’s Wood.

Besides these, there are, as mentioned in the last chapter, extensive works at Black Heath Meadow at the west-end of Linwood, but they are entirely, like those in Sloden, Oakley, and Anderwood, confined to the manufacture of coarse Romano-British pottery. This last ware seems to differ very little in character or form. The same shapes of jars (copied from the Roman _lagenæ_) were found by Mr. Kell near Barnes Chine in the Isle of Wight,[255] though at Black Heath, as in the other places in the Forest, handles, through which cords were probably intended to pass, with flat dishes, and saucer-like vessels (shaped similar to _pateræ_), all, however, in fragments, occurred.[256]

Such is a brief account of the potteries in the Forest. Their extent was, with two exceptions, restricted to one district, where the Lower Bagshot Sands, with their clays, crop out, and to the very same bed which the potters at Alderholt, on the other side of the Avon, still at this hour work.

The two exceptions at Oakley and Anderwood are situated just at the junction of the Upper Bagshot Sands and the Barton Clays, which did not suit so well, and where the potteries are very much smaller, and the ware coarser and grittier.

The date of the Crockle potteries may be roughly guessed by the coins, found there by Mr. Bartlett, of Victorinus.[257] These were much worn, and, as Mr. Akerman suggests, might be lost about the end of the third century; but the potteries were probably worked till or even after the Romans abandoned the island.

There is nothing to indicate any sudden removal, but, on the contrary, everything shows that the works were by degrees stopped, and the population gradually withdrew. None of the vessels are quite perfect, but are what are technically known as “wasters.” The most complete have some slight flaw, and are evidently the refuse, which the potter did not think fit for the market.

The size of the works need excite no surprise, when we remember how much earthenware was used in daily life by the Romans—for their floors, and drinking-cups, and oil and wine flasks, and unguent vessels, and cinerary urns, and boxes for money. The beauty, however, of the forms, even if it does not approach that of the Upchurch and Castor pottery, should be noticed. The flowing lines, the scroll-work patterns, the narrow necks of the wine-flasks and unguent vessels, all show how well the true artist understands that it is the real perfection of Art to make beauty ever the handmaid of use.

Another thing, too, is worthy of notice, that the artist was evidently unfettered by any given pattern or rule. Whatever device or form was at the moment uppermost in his mind, that he carried out, his hand following the bent of his fancy. Hence the endless variety of patterns and forms. No two vessels are exactly alike. In modern manufactures, however, the smooth uniformity of ugliness most admirably keeps down any symptoms of the prodigal luxuriance of beauty.[258]

We must, however, carefully beware of founding any theory, from the existence of these potteries, that the Forest must therefore have been cultivated in the days of the Conqueror. The reason why the Romans chose the Forest is obvious,—not from its fertility, but because it supplied the wood to fire the kilns; the same cause which, centuries after, made Yarranton select Ringwood for his smelting-furnaces. We must, too, bear in mind that after the Romans abandoned the island the natives soon went back to their primitive state of semi-barbarism; and further, that the interval between the Roman occupation and the Norman Conquest was nearly as great as that between ourselves and the Conqueror—a period long enough for the Kelts, and West-Saxons, and Danes to have swept away in their feuds all traces of civilization.

But what we should see in them is that beauty of form, which in simple outline has seldom been excelled, proclaiming a people who should in their descendants be the future masters of Art, as then they were of warfare.

The history of a nation may be more plainly read by its manufactures than by its laws or constitution. Its true æsthetic life, too, should be determined not so much by its list of poets or painters, as by the beauty of the articles in daily use.

And so still at Alderholt, not many miles off, the same beds of clay are worked, and jars, and flasks, and dishes made, but with a difference which may, perhaps, enable us to understand our inferiority in Art to the former rulers of our island.

What further we should see in the whole district, is the way in which the Romans stamped their iron rule upon every land which they conquered. Everywhere in the Forest remain their traces. Urns, made at these potteries, full of their coins, have been dug up at Anderwood and Canterton. Nails at Cadenham, millstones at Studley Head, bricks at Bentley, iron slag at Sloden, with the long range of embankments stretching from wood to wood, and the camps at Buckland Rings and Eyeworth, show that they well knew both how to conquer in war and to rule in peace.