This chapter is arranged as a catalogue of each characterised ware. The entries, with the exception of early to mid-Saxon pottery are approximately ordered by their County of origin (post-1974) although many pottery sources are not precisely known. Within each county the industries are described in alphabetical order of 'common name'. Since many wares are known by several names it may be neccessary to use appendix 4, a cross-index of ware names and codes. Pottery types are grouped together into Wares. A ware consists either of pottery of a single fabric or sometimes several fabrics which can be shown, either by petrology or by archaeological evidence, to have been produced in the same Industry. Only characterised wares are included in this chapter. The proportion of characterised to uncharacterised pottery varies from area to area, site to site and period to period.
Each ware entry is of the same format, although sometimes not all of the characteristics are recorded.
The names given to the wares are mainly the invention of the author. Few rules have been applied in assigning names if the kiln site is known and the ware is characterised then it is given the kiln site name, for example Ham Green ware. If the ware is not assignable to a single kiln site, but is still definable as a regionalised group then it is given the name of the region as in South Somerset Ware. If the source of the ware is not certain then the original fabric coding has been kept, for example, Gloucester TF41B. The end result is that there are numerous temporary common names given when the fieldwork was in progress. It is quite common for a single ware to be known in the archaeological literature by a number of names; for example Minety ware is known in the Bristol region as 'Selsley Common' type ware, a term coined by Rahtz after Dunning (1949) whilst in Ireland it is apparently known as the Severn Valley type (pers. comm. P. Wallace) because it was first identified there by the author. At intervals the author has fluctuated between giving a broad regional name, North Wiltshire limstone-tempered ware and a more precise name, Minety ware, the latter gradually taking over from the former as research progressed. Names, therefore can be more misleading than helpful and for this reason it is important to define terms when publishing pottery reports. Ham Green ware, for example is a term which can have a strict definition (see below) but has been used in the west of England and the western seaboard as a catch-all term for light-bodied pottery decorated with plastic ornament. The alternative to exhaustive published description is to deposit examples of the ware in a reference collection but the curating of such a collection is probably beyond the capabilities of most local museums whilst excavation units are transitory bodies and cannot be relied upon to exist in, say, five or ten years time.
The hardness of a fabric was defined on a three-point scale. Soft is defined as a fabric which can be scratched by the fingernail, hard is a fabric which cannot be scratched by the fingernail but which can be scratched with a steel blade and very hard as a fabric which cannot be scratched with a steel blade.
Hardness depends on the texture of the clay, extremely silty clays are easily scratched because they crumble. It also depends on firing temperature, although the exact temperature at which the boundaries are reached varies from fabric to fabric. Malvern Chase clay becomes very hard, with an associated change in colour between 900 and 1000 degrees centigrade.
Ideally this should record the colour of the core, the colour of the interior and exterior margins and the colour of the interior and exterior surfaces, since all of these characteristics can be distinctive of the method of firing. The colour should also be based on the study of a large sample of sherds and should be recorded using the standard Munsell colour chart. In practice, colour was often badly recorded, because of the amount of time taken to make a full record.
These are listed in the following order type; frequency; size range and sorting; roundness; and description. Inclusions were identified visually using the binocular microscope and further detail was added after thin-section analysis, for example of limestones and sedimentary rock fragments which have detail too fine to examine by eye.
This section applies mainly to thin-sectioned wares and describes the fine sand and silt sized inclusions, which are not visible by eye and whether or not the clay matrix is anisotropic. An anisotropic clay matrix is one through which polarised light can pass. Clays loose this property when they enter a glassy state on heating. The exact time/temperature needed to produce an isotropic clay varies with the chemical composition.
A full list of thin-sections can be found in appendix one. The entries here therefore are merely a cross-index. Where appropiate the provenance of the sample and the type of vessel are also recorded here.
All evidence for the source of a ware is included here, even if it is inconclusive. This leaves a class of information without a natural position in the thesis, evidence for pottery production for which no archaeological evidence exists. This is mainly in the form of documentary references and place-names. For convenience this information is inserted into this chapter under the appropiate county heading.
In this section all forms found in a ware are listed, with reference to the collection(s) where they are found if this is significant. Discussion of the vessel types and how those in different fabrics compare with one another can be found in Chapter Seven. For those wares made within the study region, illustrations of the forms produced are provided, if the typology of the ware has not been fully published elsewhere.
A discussion of the evidence for dating is to be found in Chapter Six and the distribution evidence is discussed in Chapter Eleven. This section summarises the evidence for a single ware. Distribution maps showing the distribution of each class of vessel in each period are included here, together with a brief list of findspots. Full details of the assemblages in which the wares were found and if relevant their relative proportions can be found in appendix two.
All works which publish descriptions of the ware, or illustrate substantial examples are included here. References to the publications of sites where the ware was found but which do not describe or illustrate it will be found in Appendix two, the gazetteer of sites.