Note 253 — Chapter XVIII · THE ROMAN AND ROMANO-BRITISH POTTERIES.

The most noticeable specimens which I discovered were a strainer or colander, a funnel, some fragments of “mock Samian” ware; part of a lamp, with the holes to admit air, as also for suspension; and some beads of Kimmeridge clay, proving, by being found here, their Roman origin. The iron tools of the workmen had been dropped into the furnace, and were a good deal melted. The wood owed its preservation to the ferruginous soil in which it was imbedded, and was in a semi-fossilized state. Nothing less slight than a plank could have lasted so long. The finger-marks and impress of the hand were very plain on one of the masses of brick-earth. The coin, I am sorry to say, is too much worn to be recognized. These, with the other vessels, pateræ, urceoli, lagenæ, pocula, acetabula, &c., I have placed in the British Museum, where is also Mr. Bartlett’s rich collection. The patterns, with the necks of ampullæ and gutti, as also the specimens at pages 214, 225, will, I trust, give some general idea of the beauty of the ware, and can be compared with those given by Mr. Akerman in Archæologia, vol. xxxv. p. 96, and by Mr. Franks in the Archæological Journal, vol. x. p. 8. The commonest shape for a drinking-vessel is the right-hand figure at page 225, known in the Forest, from the depressions made by the workman’s thumb, as a “thumb pot.” Sometimes it is met with considerably ornamented, and varies in height from three to ten inches. The principal part of the pottery is slate-coloured and grey, and faint yellow, but some of a fine red bronze and morone, caused by the overheating of the ovens. The patterns are thrown up by some white pigment, though a great many are left untouched by anything but the workman’s tool. When chipped, the ware, by being so well burnt, is quite siliceous. This manufactory, as its size would show, was not confined to merely supplying the wants of the immediate neighbourhood, but probably, with others at Alice Holt and elsewhere, furnished a great part of the South of England with its earthenware, for fragments of the same make, shape, and texture, have been found at Bittern (Clausentum), and Chichester, though doubtless a similarity of workmanship prevailed amongst many of the potteries. The so-called crockery of the southern part of the Forest is nothing else but the plates of turtles imbedded in the Freshwater marls.