APPENDIX. 



NOTES ON THE SITE OF ROMAN POTTERY WORKS 

 AT THE MYNCHERY UPON THE SEWAGE FARM, 

 NEAR OXFORD. 



In the year 1879, ^^ t^e course of trenching and levelling operations 

 at the Mynchery or site of the nunnery near Littlemore, Oxford, under- 

 taken by the Local Board in connection with the formation of a 

 Sewage Farm, the engineers employed by the Local Board exposed in 

 the farm-yard a number of human skeletons with some mediaeval stone 

 coffins. The bodies found undisturbed were all lying with the head to 

 the west and the feet to the east, and in the graves numerous pavement 

 tiles were found similar to those of Plantagenet times exposed in making 

 excavations in All Souls Chapel. The skeletons were of both sexes and 

 of different ages, and may have been the bodies of persons who had died 

 in a poor-house attached to the priory of the Benedictine nuns, dissolved 

 by Henry the Eighth, which formerly stood on this spot. 



As in many of the fields a considerable quantity of broken Roman 

 pottery was also found, both on the surface and buried to the depth of 

 one and two feet, it was considered desirable that the ground should be 

 carefully examined in order to see if evidence could be obtained that the 

 pottery had been manufactured in the locality. Permission having been 

 given to Dr. Rolleston by the Local Board to continue the excavations, 

 Mr. Edgar S. Cobbold, who took great interest in the discovery, gave very 

 material assistance, and in the course of time four kilns (one a double one in 

 a good state of preservation) in which the pottery had been made, together 

 with a well and pieces of the burnt clay on which the pots were placed 

 for the process of baking, were exposed. In the rubbish heaps adjoining 

 the kilns some moulds were found, and burnt clay retaining the marks 

 of the workmen's fingers. As a rule the pottery was much broken, but 

 a few perfect pieces and others almost perfect were found, and of these 

 some were contained in the well. The pots or shards consisted of jars, 



