Lullingstone Roman Villa and the Darent Valley
A orange deep-dish bowl next to a smaller brown glazed jug with white inscription 'SVA'. Behind this there is a grey-coloured jug with a handle on its long neck.

Pottery

Pottery was important to the Romans because it was used to cook and store food. Although the Romans had metal utensils, simple clay pots and pans were cheaper and more widely available. Potters were important people in Roman Britain because everyone used pottery in their daily lives. It could also have important meaning as fine dining ware or as grave goods. 


Back to the Map

An illustration of a man standing over a potter's wheel with a small ceramic cup being spun. He holds a long pole slotted into the wheel which he uses to spin it.
Standing pottery wheels like this one may have been used to create pottery in Roman Kent.

How was pottery made in Roman Kent?

By the end of the Late Iron Age (1st century BC), there were already changes being made in pottery production. This included the introduction of a potter's wheel. After AD 60-70, there was a big change in how pottery was produced in North Kent. Larger, more permanent kiln sites meant that more pottery could be made to sell more widely. Sites with only one or two kilns like Otford probably only made pottery for nearby households. There is no evidence that anything other than small household kilns existed in the Darent Valley. 

The people who worked at larger kiln sites probably lived close by. Some of them worked as potters all the time but for others their work might have changed with the seasons because of Britain's climate. Although they couldn't make pots all year round, there were lots of other related jobs that potters could do throughout the year. This included gathering clay supplies, preparing the clay for pottery-making, gathering firewood and making charcoal.

Pottery in the Darent Valley

Click on the images below to find out more about the pottery found in the Darent Valley and how archaeologists study it.

A black and white photograph of a stone kiln. It has a hole in the top and another at the front.

Pottery Kiln

Pottery Kiln

Otford Progress Villa is the only villa in the Darent Valley where evidence of a pottery kiln has been found. This suggests that pottery was being made there but only on a small scale. Small-scale pottery production could make enough products to use within a settlement but large-scale production could make enough pottery to use and trade in other settlements.

 

© Kent Archaeological Society



Two black ceramic fragments. The raised design on the fragments is incomplete but shows parts of a hare being chased by hounds. There is a ruler up the left hand side of the fragments and another along the bottom. These show the fragments are around five centimetres by five centimetres and nine centimetres by six centimetres.

Hunting Cup

Hunting Cup

Some broken bits of pottery (‘sherds’) from a ‘hunting cup’ were found at Otford Church Field Villa. Fine colour-coated pottery like this may have come from the Nene Valley in Northamptonshire. The cup was decorated with a hare being chased by hounds. Fine pottery like this was used in dining rooms by wealthy people of high status.

 

© Discovery Roman Otford Project (DROP)



A black and white image of a spherical ceramic pot.

Globular Jar

Globular Jar

This is a globular (spherical) Roman jar that was placed at the side of a grave at East Hill Dartford Cemetery. The two holes in the side of the jar were made after the pot was made. They could have been used as a kind of timer or in cooking food. It would have been difficult to make these kinds of holes without damaging the pot.

 

© Wessex Archaeology



A section of pottery laying on top of a set of electric scales. A small magnifying glass sits next to the scales.

Pottery Assessment

Pottery Assessment

Archaeologists regularly study pottery as it's one of the most common artefacts they find in excavations. Pottery is so well studied that we can tell which period finds are from and even what areas certain pottery was made in. We can tell by looking at the form of a pot and it's fabric (what the clay is made from and how the pot was fired).

Pottery specialists can take measurements of a single sherd of pottery and work out the original size and diameter of the pot it came from. They do this by using rim charts to study a pot's curves. They also weigh and count all the sherds they find as this can suggest how many whole pots there might have been.



Pottery Objects

Click on the images below to explore our 3D scans of pottery found at Lullingstone Roman Villa. 

Activity Idea

ART AND DESIGN

Become a potter yourself by designing and making your own Roman vessel out of clay. Take inspiration from the pottery found in the Darent Valley to create a tile, amphora or jar. You could include symbols or images popular in Roman Britain, like myths and legends.