l6 ROMAN POTTERY FOUND IN BRITAIN. 
collection), York and Edinburgh, and usually classed as Upchurch, 
are of similar form and technique to those described by Loeschcke 
as autochthonous Belgic wares, and to others frequently met with 
in later Romano-Belgic cemeteries. Hence it appears probable 
that such wares, usually termed Upchurch, would be more 
accurately described as Belgic or Romano-Belgic wares. Accord¬ 
ing to Loeschcke (Op. cit., p. 258 ff.) autochthonous Belgic types 
are to be distinguished from those which are merely imitations of 
Roman shapes of vessels ; and only the finest Belgic crockery is 
specified when only terra nigra, grey, and orange-red is assigned 
to it. Like all other peoples the Belgae had their cooking-pots, 
store-vessels, &c., prepared in coarser technique. With the 
abandonment of sigillata imitations (in the Claudian-Neronic 
period, or not later than about 68 A.D.), the native element in 
Belgic vessels again came more strongly forward. 
The recorded evidence also makes it clear that the immense 
accumulation of potsherds, “ mixed with plenty of vessels in a 
perfect or nearly pefect state,”"' obtained by probing in the soft 
mud, in the creeks and inlets of the Medway near to Upchurch, 
where no potters’ kilns have been found or could ever have 
existed, is not composed of ‘ wasters,’ i.e., overbaked, flawed, 
distorted or discoloured specimens, such as are invariably found 
in heaps around the kilns; but suggests that the accumulation is 
a gradual deposit through centuries of breakages during the 
voyage, and whole vessels dropped overboard while unloading the 
the flat bottomed ships in which they were imported from the 
opposite coasts,—a kind of deposit which is known to exist near 
to Tilbury Fort, higher up the River Thames. Other facts 
recorded, viz., that ‘Upchurch wares’ are equally common in 
France and Germany,! and that immense quantities of precisely 
similar wares to those found near Upchurch exist in the turf bogs 
of Flanders and near to Boulogne,! amply confirm the view that 
they are of Continental origin.§ 
* Wright, The Celt, the Roman and the Saxon, p. 260. 
f Archaeologia, XXIX. (1842), p. 223 ff. 
X C. R. Smith, Collect. Antiq., VI.. p. 198. 
§ Speaking of Upchurch wares, Walters (Cat. li.), says “it is very unlikely 
that any of these varieties were manufactured there,” and suggests as the only 
likely centre, Higham. in the neighbourhood ; but the wares actually found at 
Higham are much inferior to Upchurch wares. 
