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THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE 



Holt/Farnham industry are rare but of significance 

 in dating and marketing patterns at Wayside Farm. 

 20 sherds, weighing 429g and representing three 

 vessels have been recognised, including material 

 from contexts other than the midden. The two 

 identifiable forms, 3B and 5B are part of the late 

 Roman repertoire at this production centre (Lyne 

 and Jeffries 1979) and have the characteristic white 

 slip over the upper part of the vessel in the case of 

 the everted rim jar, type 3B and a dark grey slip on 

 the bowl, type 5B. These types, when taken in 

 conjunction with the shell-tempered wares and the 

 Overwey/Tilford products, form a distinctive late 

 Roman cluster where these products occur some 

 considerable distance from their source (see 

 discussion below). 



LOCAL WARES 



These comprise 36.10% of the assemblage by 

 weight and 62.2% by sherd number. 



The Grey Wares 



Two grey sandy fabrics, GS 1 and GS 2 dominate 

 the local wares. Of these, GS 1, the finer of the two 

 fabrics, is by far the most prevalent, comprising of 

 just over 80% of the grey wares and everted-rim 

 jars and drop-flange bowls dominate the forms 

 (52% and 34% respectively). For ease of 

 convenience, the form numbers used here for these 

 products are the same as the BBI series from 

 Greyhound Yard, Dorchester. An additional form, 

 a simple pedestal-base beaker, is known in this 

 fabric and occurs in 'midden' deposits and in 

 association with the late Roman inhumations 

 (below, Fig. C, nos. x-x). The source of the grey 

 wares is uncertain, but may be in the Swindon area. 



The Oxidised Wares 



Two oxidised sandy fabrics, OXID SI and S2 have 

 been noted. Neither occurs in particularly large 

 quantities and fabric S2 is only present in midden 

 context 4017 where two vessels, a drop-flange bowl 

 and a cavetto or hooked-rim jar with body rilling 

 are present. As with the grey-wares, the source is 

 unknown but presumed to be local. 



FORMS 



The identifiable forms from the midden and other 

 late Roman contexts are, in the case of the coarse 

 wares, dominated by jars and bowls. The fine ware 



assemblage shows greater preference for bowls with 

 only a small number of closed forms such as beakers 

 or flagons. 



Fine Wares 



The fine ware assemblage is dominated by products 

 of the Oxford industry. This centre supplied over 

 85% of the late Roman fine wares at Wayside Farm, 

 the remainder being supplied by the New Forest 

 industry. The forms represented are presented 

 below in Table 7. 



It is clear that bowls dominate the assemblage 

 with closed forms such as flagons and beakers 

 making a notably small proportion of the overall 

 totals. Of the bowls, the forms are relatively evenly 

 divided between the hemispherical bowls such as 

 Young types C51, C75, C78-9, C83 and C85 and 

 the shallow bowls of the C45 series. Of the latter 

 class, many of the rims are noticeably thickened, a 

 feature that Young has classified as a separate class, 

 C46 (Young 1977, 1 58) and dates to after C.AD340 

 (ibid.). Of the bowls present the majority (91%) 

 are in the standard Oxford red-slipped fabric (OXF 

 RH) with remaining 9% being 'Parchment Ware' 

 (OXF PH) with red-paint decoration. A very 

 noticeable feature of the fine wares is the preference 

 for New Forest products for the supply of flagons 

 and beakers. All of these are in the purple gloss or 

 darker colour coat variants. No New Forest red- 

 slipped products are present. 



Decoration 



The decorative motifs found on the fine wares have 

 already been mentioned above. They are of standard 

 types discussed by Fulford (1975) andYoung (1977) 

 and range from white or red paint to impressed stamps 

 of rosette or demi-rosette type. No unusual variants 

 of these decorative styles were noted. Attention 

 however should again be drawn to the large number 

 of OXF RS bowls with impressed rosette and demi- 

 rosette stamps, as this is a clear chronological 

 benchmark for late 4th to early 5th century groups. 



Mortaria 



Mortaria form a very small percentage (4.3% eve) 

 of the late Roman assemblage and all of these are 

 from the Oxford region. The colour-coated types 

 C97 and CI 00 (6.2 eve) dominate this small 

 category, with a smaller number (2.4 eve) of the 

 white ware (OXF WH) products. Of the latter all, 

 where the form can be identified, belong to Young 

 type M22, the most common and widespread 4th 

 to early 5th century mortarium product. 



