Colchester Samian Ware Kilns

About

Colchester was the only place in Roman Britain that ever tried making its own Samian ware, and excavators found the proof in 1933: a bank of kilns buried five to eight feet under waste from the venture. Four kilns fired coarse jugs and mortaria while a separate, walled-off cluster produced glossy red tableware copying the Gaulish imports everyone wanted. Production began under Nero and never matched continental quality, but the coarseware side of the industry kept supplying the colonia and its garrison well into the second century. It remains Britain's only known attempt at homegrown Samian.

What happened here

The workshop runs as a production line. Clay is dug locally, weathered over winter, kneaded and thrown, or pressed into moulds for the decorated wares. Vessels are dried under cover, stamped with the potter's name, stacked in the kiln around a central flue and fired for days with the temperature judged by eye and by test pieces pulled from a port in the side. A big firing holds tens of thousands of pots and a bad one loses the lot. Wasters are dumped in heaps beside the works. Some workshops export across half the empire and their stamps turn up thousands of miles away. Fuel is the limit on everything, so kilns sit near woodland and move when it runs out.

Sources

• Colchester Heritage, 'The Roman Potters' Kilns of Colchester'
• Nature, 'Romano-British Pottery at Colchester'

Nearby

Roman Town Wall of Colchester

607 m

Balkerne Gate, Colchester

705 m

Temple of Claudius, Colchester

963 m

Duncan's Gate, Colchester

986 m

Colchester Roman Circus

1.3 km

Gosbecks Romano-Celtic Temple

4.0 km