Wasters from a potter’s kiln
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During excavations in 1935 just within the city wall on the site of the then Bedford Garage (now the top of Princesshay), an abandoned kiln was found. It was re-excavated by Lady Aileen Fox in 1955, but in the 1970s it was realised that the kiln and its pottery waste were late Saxon in date.
At a time when much of Anglo-Saxon England was using crude, hand-made pottery, and the use of any sort of pottery was only slowly being adopted in western Britain, the pottery made here was of very high quality. It was refined, wheel-thrown wares fired in a kiln, some of them glazed. It seems likely that the potter operating the kiln had come from northern France.
Acknowledgments: © 2015 Royal Albert Memorial Museum & Art Gallery, Exeter City Council
, an abandoned kiln was found. It was re-excavated by Lady Aileen Fox in 1955, but in the 1970s it was realised that the kiln and its pottery waste were late Saxon in date.
At a time when much of Anglo-Saxon England was using crude, hand-made pottery, and the use of any sort of pottery was only slowly being adopted in western Britain, the pottery made here was of very high quality. It was refined, wheel-thrown wares fired in a kiln, some of them glazed. It seems likely that the potter operating the kiln had come from northern France.)
