Such is a brief account of the potteries in the Forest. Their extent was, with two exceptions, restricted to one district, where the Lower Bagshot Sands, with their clays, crop out, and to the very same bed which the potters at Alderholt, on the other side of the Avon, still at this hour work.
The two exceptions at Oakley and Anderwood are situated just at the junction of the Upper Bagshot Sands and the Barton Clays, which did not suit so well, and where the potteries are very much smaller, and the ware coarser and grittier.
The date of the Crockle potteries may be roughly guessed by the coins, found there by Mr. Bartlett, of Victorinus.[1] These were much worn, and, as Mr. Akerman suggests, might be lost about the end of the third century; but the potteries were probably worked till or even after the Romans abandoned the island.
There is nothing to indicate any sudden removal, but, on the contrary, everything shows that the works were by degrees stopped, and the population gradually withdrew. None of the vessels are quite perfect, but are what are technically known as "wasters." The most complete have some slight flaw, and are evidently the refuse, which the potter did not think fit for the market.
The size of the works need excite no surprise, when we
- ↑ I may add that Mr. Drayson also possesses coins of Victorinus, and Claudius Gothicus, found in various parts of the Forest, the last in one of the "thumb-pots," with 1700 others, perhaps, indicating the period when the Crockle and Island Thorn Potteries were in their most flourishing condition.
was sufficient to show its occupation during the Roman period, and to dispel the illusion that it was ever the site of a church. On the north-east side of the wood are the remains of a fine Roman camp, the agger and vallum being in one place nearly complete.
