THE NEW FOREST. XXX111. 



clay was fetched to the fuel, and not the fuel to the clay. There was 

 abundance of wood in the Forest, and the clay may have come either 

 from the hills around or from Alderholt. The floors of the kilns were 

 made of heath stone sand indurated with iron. That fact was 

 interesting, because in the course of the excavations which he had 

 made on the site of a Roman farm on Rockbourne Down, where some 

 Roman hypocausts had been found, he observed that the sides of the 

 flues were made entirely of this heath sandstone, which withstood fire 

 and burnt a wine-red. He had written to Mr. Engleheart, of Tisbury, 

 who had excavated at Andover, and asked him whether he had also 

 found this heath-stone used. Mr. Engleheart answered that in all the 

 hypocausts that he had unearthed he had found this heath-stone, 

 burnt a fine wine-colour. This heath-stone was found on all the hills 

 about there, but not at Andover or on the heath Itself. Probably it 

 was an article of export, just as this coarse and fine pottery was hawked 

 about the country. At Island's Thorn Mr. Bartlett dug up three 

 Roman coins, dating from 350 to 370 A.D., but the patterns on some 

 of the ornamented pottery had a distinct pre -Roman or late Celtic 

 character, which suggested that these potteries were a going concern 

 before the Romans came, and before they somewhat changed their 

 style of ornamentation. Much of the pottery found on the downs was 

 too soft to be hawked about ; but that made at Sloden was quite hard, 

 either black-grey or reddish ware, extremely well made and rather 

 harsh to the touch. Presumably these " spoil banks " were the place 

 where they threw away the unsatisfactorily-made pieces the fiaschi. 

 At Sloden the pottery was all of one kind, for homely domestic purposes, 

 but at Island's Thorn there was considerable variety. The principal 

 type was of a rather thick, bone-coloured ware, on which lines and 

 zig-zags were painted in red. Then there was also a very hard grey 

 pottery with a purplish glaze, ornamented with indentations and 

 zig-zags ; and again one found a thinner reddish pottery with a glaze 

 apparently meant to imitate Samian a better-class ware which came 

 from Gaul and which the Romans appreciated very much. The potters 

 in the Forest were not very successful in their imitation of it, and their 

 glaze always wore off. 



Before leaving Island's Thorn, Captain Elwes was asked to 

 make a few comments on the flora of the neighbourhood. 

 He said that among the rarities was a very scarce wild 

 gladiolus, which was not improbably introduced by the 

 Romans ; the plant had disappeared for a time, but during 

 the last twenty years it had been found again. Another rare 

 plant was the ivy-leaved harebell, which occurred among 



