Savernake Forest Pottery Kilns
About
Potters working the clay beds of Savernake Forest, four to six kilometers from the Roman town of Cunetio, fired grey jars, bowls and dishes with roots reaching back into the pre-Roman Iron Age. Excavation around Bitham Pond on Column Ride uncovered several of their kilns, and the ware stayed in circulation across Wiltshire for roughly two centuries. The exact kiln locations and earliest firing dates are not tightly fixed, so this pin sits at an approximate position in the forest.
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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