O^J SOME DIGGINGS NEAR BRASSINGTON, DERBYSHIRE. Ill 



differences in source of clay and manufacture. The paste of by 

 far the largest class is very coarse, uneven, silicious, ami of a 

 dirty grey colour. Experiments tend to prove that the clay was 

 derived from the puzzling deposits of sand and sandy clay found 

 in lake-like hollows of the Mountain limestone in the vicinity, 

 and which, nearer Brassington, are largely worked for fiie-bricks. 

 Tins ware is undoubtedly domestic, and has several points of 

 difference from that of the British round barrows of Derbyshire 

 and Staffordshire, as exemplified in the valuable Bateman 

 Collection at Weston Park Museum, Sheffield. The ornamenta- 

 tion of the former, when present, consists usually of one, and 

 sometimes two bands of impressions of the tip of the finger 

 (Figs. 3, 5, 7, and 8), or more rarely, the finger nail obliquely 

 held (Fig. 6), or the end of a stick : while that of the barrow 

 pottery is usually elaborate and made up of lines produced by 

 the impression of a twisted thong or rush, or a pointed tool, and 

 more rarely impressions of the edge of the finger nail. Again, the 

 colour of the latter tends to red, the paste is more friable, and 

 generally the workmanship and finish are superior. The latter 

 three points of difference may be due to a peculiarity of the 

 Harborough clay, and a very natural spe ial care bestowed upon 

 the manufacture and embellishment of vessels destined for 

 sepulchral purposes. This, however, is scarcely adequate to 

 account for the radical difference in the ornamentation of the 

 two kinds; on the other hand, may not these and certain other 

 peculiarities be collectively held to indicate a difference of age ? 



As a rule the rims of these Harborough vessels varied in 

 two directions from a central type, which had the sides of the 

 vessel at first curving inwards, thus giving rise to an external 

 shoulder and at a higher level a constricted neck, and then the 

 curve swept outwards to form a more or less recurved lip, as in 

 Fig. I c. Usually these curves were not.equally developed, and 

 sometimes one or other was quite suppressed, hence the series of 

 sections from actual examples shown in Fig. i, the most common 

 forms being b, c and d. 



