We wrote recently of pottery recognition training at the museum, led by Lorraine Mepham of Wessex Archaeology (look for her at The Salisbury Museum Archaeology Festival, talking about her favourite find on Saturday 23 July). Originally intended as training for PAS (Portable Antiquities Scheme) Volunteers, it was opened up for a necessarily limited number of other Volunteers, and everyone was fascinated.
The conclusion of the two days’ sessions was on Post Roman pottery.
One of the abiding mysteries of what used to be called the Dark Ages (ie the Post Roman or Anglo Saxon period, on which quite a lot of light has recently been shone but which is still mysterious in many ways) is what happened to the advances of the Roman period?
Early on, the Romans had introduced the potter’s wheel , but apart from around places like Southampton (Hamwic) where there were imported goods, wheel thrown pottery disappeared after the fifth century BC. We trainees found it difficult to distinguish Saxon from the pre-historic pottery of five hundred years before!
Improvements were made, of course, and slightly finer finishes were achieved by burnishing (rubbing leather-hard unfired clay pots with a stone to give it a smooth finish) and the use of slip (watery clay mix) and glossy and colourful glazes later began to become the norm.
Specialised vessels began to appear – dripping dishes, pipkins (small pots sometimes on legs), chafing dishes, frying pans, cauldrons, costrels (for carrying drink), as well as jugs and bowls and jars, for serving, working with, and for storage. Decoration and colour became more exotic and burnishing less common.
Potteries in Wiltshire and nearby became well known – Laverstock; Surrey (producing white wares); the Kennet Valley; Michelmersh (producing grey wares) and at Minety, Wiltshire, where the potter’s wheel made a return early on.
By c AD 1500 the fabric of pottery no longer showed up with inclusions (substances – shell, grit, broken pot – added to give strength to the clay). Wheels and ‘properly’ built kilns which gave higher temperatures and strengthened the pot that way, became the norm.
Stoneware was imported from Germany and tin-glazed earthenware from other parts of the Continent, which was much copied in England.
Then, after the 17th century, almost all homes in the south, certainly in Hampshire, Dorset and Wiltshire, would have had Verwood pottery in the kitchen and for everyday use. It was a type of pottery rather than all coming from Verwood (in Dorset). It was an industry that probably existed in the late Middle Ages (the earliest known kiln dating from the 1600s) and continued until 1952 when the last pottery closed down, in Verwood itself. In those last days, the village of Verwood was producing anything and everything in pottery, from pleasant (but not high-end) dining crockery and bread bins, to money boxes, pot-pourri containers and bedpans. The Dorset Owl is the iconic image of the industry, made to hold water or cider for workers in the field.
We didn’t go further than this as the PAS does not generally record anything after about 1750. But what a history! Examples of the pre-historic pottery which we studied in the first session are to be seen in the Wessex Gallery and most of the types of pot in this section are in the Ceramics Gallery. Many thanks to Lorraine.