Kiln Floor in Production

You might be forgiven for thinking that it's National Boring Photograph Day but this pic does illustrate the fact that, while we are in the grips of winter here in Rothbury, work on the Roman kilns is going ahead.  These clay bars will form the floor of the firing chamber and will be laid, radiating out from a central support like the spokes of a wheel, allowing the flames to pass up from the firebox and combustion chamber, see Roman Sunken Kiln Under Construction below.

Kiln bars drying in the workshop

  I haven't been back to the Westhills kiln since my last blog on the subject and my work on the York kiln got rained off after three days.  In this time I did however get the sunken part of the kiln dug out and most of the raised chamber wall built and clay lined.  It's actually mixing the clay and soil that takes the time, if I was working on an actual Roman Pottery production site with a high clay content in the soil I would simply add water.  As it is the soil on site is mostly sand and builders rubble so needs careful sorting and clay adding to it.

York kiln - lining the chamber with clay

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Six Wheels on my Workshop.....so far

And I'm aiming for ten. Today I built two stick wheels, one floor mounted and one a seated wheel, and cast the flywheels for two momentum kick wheels. I'm trying to cover a wide variety of wheel types and from the Stibbington, wheel alone it's obvious that the Romans used both stick and kick. I want participants in my workshops to have the opportunity of experiencing both types. As you will see from the photographs, today I've made wheels which utilise old cart wheels as the flywheel. This type of wheel was certainly used during the mediaeval period as shown in various mauscripts, it's still used in India and I can't believe that Roman potters would have missed the opportunity to utilise an old cart wheel.

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Bronze-Age Jewellery

I'm hoping to recreate some sets of Bronze-Age grave goods so I'm setting myself the challenge of making a jet necklace from Kyloe in Northumberland. I suspect that this reconstruction from the 1928 edition of Archaeologia Aeliana isn't quite correct but .............

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Young Potters

At a recent Children's Archaeology Day event, organised by Coquetdale Community Archaeology, in Harbottle, Northumberland, I took along my Roman potter's wheel and manged to get a group of young people to produce some quite accomplished pots on it. I know that most people find their first attempt on the wheel pretty difficult, so I was absolutely delighted with the results that these children produced. Look out for many more demonstrations and workshops for chidren and adults in the coming year.

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Roman Pottery at Newcastle YAC

I spent today working with a great group of young people at the Newcastle branch of the Young Archaeologists' Club (YAC). The theme for todays meeting was the Romans, so we looked at various pieces from my handling collection of replicas and then I gave them a demonstration of throwing on a stick wheel. These youngsters showed a great deal of enthusiasm and posed some very intelligent questions. The participants then each made a small moulded Roman figure to take home before indulging in a fantastic Roman Feast (Great food!). Dr Jane Webster of Newcastle University and Dr Rob Young of English Heritage who run this YAC group along with a few helpers are obviousl doing a great job, long may it continue. Thanks for inviting me and I hope that you'll invite me back sometime soon.
Throwing on the stick wheel (photo by Ken Lister)