SNN58178 - Romano-British pottery kilns near Northampton

SP 824654 etc. Intensive recent field-work in the Upper Nene valley has located many new kiln sites. Twenty, in an area about eight miles by six, are surveyed in this paper, and their products studied and illustrated; distribution of the products is shown, provisionally, to be purely local. A group of kilns excavated in 1962 at Ecton is reported in full. Four updraught kilns of varying forms fired the work of at least two potters in 2nd and 3rd centuries AD; this included flagons and mortaria. The industry locally dates from mid-first century AD, and flourished into the second; a recession in 3rd century was apparently followed by complete breakdown in 4th. This perhaps reflects competition from potteries of the Lower Nene around Castor, as occupation of domestic sites continued unabated.