Upchurch Marshes Pottery Industry
About
Potters working the tidal saltmarsh at Upchurch fired coarse grey and black-surfaced pottery that London's markets consumed by the barge-load. At least eighteen kiln sites have been identified in the marsh, several carrying techniques straight from Late Iron Age traditions. Ships loaded jars, beakers and flagons directly from the marsh's own creeks for the short run up the Thames estuary to Londinium.
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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