RELICS OF THK ROMAN OCCUPATION, LITTLE CHESTER, DERBY. 83 



Several fragmenls of beautifully finislied, ihin and highly lustrous 

 ware were found at the farm. Two belonged to an indented 

 vessel (similar to fig. 172 Ceramic Art) of close red paste with 

 horizontal lines of "hatched" work. Two others, one scarcely 

 Jy inch in thickness and delicately "hatched," belonging to a 

 small globular vessel, and the other thicker and belonging to a 

 narrow necked one, are of close blackish paste and with a highly 

 lustrous dark grey surface. 



Pottery of a thicker and softer build, not sonorous when struck, 

 and black throughout, is strongly represented among the fragments. 

 The colour is due to the process of the smother-kiln, several of which, 

 described and illustrated in Ceramic Art, have been found upon 

 the sites of the extensive Roman potteries at and around Castor, 

 Northamptonshire. This process consisted in an arrangement 

 for closing the flue at a certain stage of the firing, by which 

 means the carbonaceous fumes of the fire, and those derived from 

 the ground rye or wheat mixed with the clay of which the pottery 

 was made, were pent up and caused to impregnate the contents of 

 the kiln. The surface of this pottery is frequently smooth and 

 with a sort of dull waxy gloss — evidently produced by a burnisher 

 when the paste was almost dry : where the surface is roughish, as 

 left by the wheel, it is generally ornamented by burnished, but not 

 sunk lines — hence are only seen distinctly in certain lights. 

 Most of the vessels of which they formed parts, seem to have been 

 of elegant urn character with brims boldly curved outwards. 



A coarser variety of this pottery is almost as plentiful. It is 

 heavier, harder, and in colour approaching a black-grey. The 

 surface is never smoothed as above. The vessels were larger, and 

 apparently of similar shape, only their brims, while curving out- 

 wards, were thick and bead-like. 



But the larger proportion by far are a series ranging from white 

 to buff or light red, of varying degrees of coarseness, but never so 

 fine as the above mentioned kinds of pottery, nor so coarse 

 as the common red to be described. The hardness and porosity, 

 too, vary. There can be little doubt that most of these were 

 made at the extensive Shropshire potteries ; the rest elsewhere. 



