Potteries
Pottery has been made in Britain since the Neolithic period, which started around 4500 BC. The place where pottery was produced is called, confusingly, a pottery. Often in archaeology the phrase pottery kiln is used for accuracy. The scale of production at a pottery varied; some were small-scale production sites worked by a single potter, others were much larger sites worked by a number of potters with several kilns.
The most prominent component of the majority of sites is the kiln with its firing pit, stokepits and flues, and the associated buildings and the working areas; early medieval clamp or bonfire kilns much harder to recognise archaeologically. In the simplest forms the fuel itself may for the chamber, or a single chamber of sods may hold both the fuel and the pots (a clamp kiln). In the updraught kiln a firebox provides the heat, which passes up through firebars into the pottery chamber. This was only a temporary structure of clay that had to be demolished to extract the contents after each firing. Higher temperatures were possible where the fire was to one side of the chamber, the heat being introduced at its top and allowed to escape near its base (the down-draught kiln). Other versions were designed for different purposes such as glass-making or the parching of corn (to dry it and prevent it from sprouting) where the flames could not touch the contents.
In the field, potteries are usually identified by the presence of dense pottery scatters, wasters, fired daub, and dark, ashy soil patches, which may turn up in field-walking, aerial photographs, or accidentally through ploughing or development; there may also be structural remains in the form of foundations of kilns, workshops etc. More precise locations of actual kilns can be determined by anomalies picked up through geophysical surveys. Occasionally there may also be slight earthworks. Documentary sources and place-name evidence (especially field-names), incorporating, for example, the element potter or crocker, are also of great importance in locating pottery production sites.
Potteries may sometimes be confused with other kilns, such as those used for malting, since the kilns may be of similar construction; these, however, can usually be distinguished by the finds, as malting kilns will not have the great quantities of pottery and wasters associated with most pottery kilns.
It was necessary for potteries to be situated with easy access to raw materials; most sites are located on or near a source of clay, wood for fuel, and near a river or stream for a constant supply of water. In addition, they are also often located close to routeways in order that the finished product might easily be transported to the market. For all these reasons potteries tend to be located on low ground on distinctive kinds of geology.
Potteries are usually dated by the pottery they produce, despite the fact that the kiln itself may provide the best date for the pottery. They also may be dated by other associated artefactual material and by stratigraphic relationships with earlier and later features; sometimes archaeomagnetism using the fired clay of the kiln structure or thermoluminescence may be used. Historical sources may be of some use, although potters do not figure very prominently in the documentary record.
Pottery was produced on a large scale in south east England prior to the Roman Conquest and those traditions continued into the Roman period. The function of the potteries was to produce pottery for the kitchens and tables of Roman Britain. Some potteries produced for a small, localised market whereas others had widespread outlets. Widespread pottery production commenced c.AD 40-50 and continued late into the 4th and possibly the 5th centuries.
Many of the pottery kilns excavated in Buckinghamshire date to the first and second centuries AD. A number of kilns were identified in several excavations at Gerrard's Cross, at Hedgerley and also at Wapsey's Wood in the 1960s and 1970s and some close by in Duke's Wood, Fulmer. Five mid second century AD kilns were also found during construction works at Abbey House in Biddlesden, in the north of the county.
Late prehistoric pottery kilns are generally rare but become easier to locate in the Late Iron Age, such as those at Pitstone. A medieval pottery industry was thriving in Buckinghamshire in Brill and Boarstall, producing what is known as Brill/Boarstall ware. The pottery has been found at sites across Buckinghamshire as well as surrounding counties and even further afield. Other medieval kilns have been identified at Cadmore End Common. There are many post-medieval pottery kilns in the county, such as The Potteries at Buckland Common.