embankments which mark the Sloden potteries. One is particularly noticeable, measuring twenty-two feet in width, and running in the shape of the letter Z. In the central portion I cut two trenches, but could discover nothing but a circle of charcoal, looking as if it was the remains of a workman's fire, placed on the level of the natural soil. Another trench I opened at the extreme end, as also various pits near the embankment, hut failed to find anything further.
At Ashley Rails, also, close by, stand two more mounds, which cover the remains of more ware. These I only very partially opened, for the black mould was very shallow, and the specimens the same which I had found in Pitt's Wood.
Besides these, there are, as mentioned in the last chapter, extensive works at Black Heath Meadow at the west-end of Linwood, but they are entirely, like those in Sloden, Oakley, and Anderwood, confined to the manufacture of coarse Romano-British pottery. This last ware seems to differ very little in character or form. The same shapes of jars (copied from the Roman lagenæ) were found by Mr. Kell near Barnes Chine in the Isle of Wight,[1] though at Black Heath, as in the other places in the Forest, handles, through which cords were probably intended to pass, with flat dishes, and saucer-like vessels (shaped similar to pateræ), all, however, in fragments, occurred.[2]
- ↑ See Journal of the Archæological Association, vol. xii. pp. 141-145, where some figures of the jars are given.
- ↑ In Eyeworth Wood I have found pieces of Roman wine and oil flasks, but they were left here by the former inhabitants, and not made on the spot. The place known as Church Green is evidently the site of a habitation. In the autumn of 1862 I made several excavations; but there was some difficulty attending the work, as the ground had been previously explored by the late Mr. Lewis, the author of the Historical Inquiries on the State of the New Forest. The evidence, however, of the Roman pottery
