Radlett Pottery Kilns
About
Potters at Radlett fired flagons, mortaria and coarseware just two miles from their better-known neighbors at Brockley Hill, part of the Verulamium region's pottery industry supplying Londinium along Watling Street. Analysis of the clay fabric proved Radlett's wares chemically distinct from Brockley Hill's, confirming the two ran as separate workshops rather than one sprawling complex. Production here exploited clay pits still visible today around Cobden Hill.
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
Nearby
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