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Notes from Brandiers Farm visit - 2022-07-18 - Coggle Diagram
Notes from Brandiers Farm visit - 2022-07-18
Visit on 13th July, but took some time to write up notes afterwards
Met Joe Locke, Peter Warry, and site owner and his son
Joe Locke actually excavating and supervising volunteers
Peter Warry in charge of finds and volunteers washing and IDing CBM
Finds
Hollow voussoir tiles
Measured a few but only a small number of identifiable HV sherds
A few bases c.130-140mm wide, but taper appeared far too obvious to be HV02
One base c.180mm wide, but only seen on one fragment so did not place any significance upon it
Feel like if HV01 was produced there, evidence would be abundant and unmistakeable. Small numbers of HV finds recovered suggests these were only a small component of production
Half-box flues
One (?) combed half example found
Problematic dating implications for me! But kiln not necessarily solely second century, so I may scrape past
Stamped tiles
Over 40 examples found, including TPF, TPF derivatives and LHS tiles
Several new dies found, including HI tile
Built into phase 2 of kiln, found in that vicinity, but also in clay dump pit
May be stratigraphically above RP tile fragment in dump pit, but not entirely sure
Unclear if a product of the site from the start, or if only from after first phase of production
Lack of pottery dating evidence prior to mid-second century may suggest that Warry's date for text-stamping is wrong. Perhaps RP tile date actually is late first or early second, with text-stamps adopted by civilians after this period?
Armchair Voussoirs
Complete surprise for these to be present!
Very small number of British sites with other examples
Lancaster has a good paper discussing other armchair vaults in Roman Empire, but mostly seem to be Gallic/British
With hollow voussoirs excavated this may suggest movement of tilemakers to site, perhaps very temporarily. Would have required builders to be proficient in same system too
Useful example of different streams of traditions feeding into provision of bathing facilities in Roman Britain
Tegulae
Warry noted predominantly Type Cs present, with a few type Bs
Did not note precise types, but would be surprised if they were not the same as those found at the Roman Baths
Suggests civilian tradition perhaps
Relief-patterned tiles
Site
Site excavated for two weeks by Cotswolds in 2022, but three weeks of excavation planned for 2023
Found a tile kiln and claypit/waste dump this year
New areas to be excavated next year and may yield other kilns and areas, perhaps including pottery production
Asked about clay sampling strategy plans
Nothing planned yet, but CA may prepare soemthing to be implemented next year
40+ examples of text-stamped tile seems to have come from main vicinity of kiln, but only 3 sherds of relief-patterned tile found, one from kiln rubble infill (instagram source), and others from deep contexts in tile dump pit?
The two types of tiles may well be from different episodes of production then. RP tile may be stray surface sherds that were integrated into backfill of pit, not necessarily products of the kiln itself => consider number of stray RP sherds found by Scammell at other site!
Kiln rectangular with central flue, perhaps 4x5m in dimensions on outer surfaces
Should be slightly larger than kilns found by Scammell
May suggest slightly larger scale of production, if can be taken at face value
Something like 10 or 12 courses of brick walls found. Flue just began to display traces of curving of arch, but clearly robbed.
Robber trench identified in back corner of kiln
Unlike Minety kilns, no stone used in building!
Several phases of kiln construction identified. Stamped tiles only incorporated into phase 2 onwards. May suggest that stamped tiles may not have been an initial product of the site
See comments for relief-pattern sherds for more thoughts
Bricks used in inital kiln must have come from somewhere, perhaps reused from a previous kiln somewhere in same area, but could also have been fired in a temporary or pottery beehive kiln, or even in a temp kiln made only of bricks
Clay high-quality and can be used with little mixing or prep
Pond excavated not far from kiln and clay kept by owner. He supplied me with some to play around with.
Natural inclusions of flint in clay, not temper!
Also few odd inclusions of possibly ironstone etc.
Digging of claypit and backfill of clay deposits may be discarding of surface clay that is full of roots etc. and is not fit for use, but had to be dug through to reach superior clay underneath
Number of CBM sherds collected from spoil heap and included massive and non-massive fabrics
Would be good to examine these under a microscope and use pXRF to add these to chemical plots and see if they are different or not
Suspect that many may be indistinguishable from Oaksey Park products
Best matches streaky LHS products, though clearly more homogenous TPF products also produced there too
Dating
So far, very little pottery found. Literally a handful of sherds
Pottery consistent with a date after AD 150
Small amounts of pottery indicate that pottery production was not near tile-making, though maybe present elsewhere on site
May either be stray finds of little value to the understanding of the site, or may provide a case for redating text-stamping, in which case some RP tiles may be later as well
Owner
Owner ex-potter, so has very strong interest in arch at the site
Intends to run pottery making workshops from the site, hiring a potter and using local clay and kiln
Knows owner of other Minety site, and says he is very uncooperative and farms land, so unlikely to be willing to facilitate exploration of the site without monetary gain :cry:
Owner's adult son tried to build a Roman kiln at Brandiers but it collapsed, so he is keen to get input and expertise from Hayden to rebuild it properly
Gave owner my email address, but not heard from him yet
Email Hayden to talk to him about Brandiers and set up contact with Brandiers owner
Talk with Peter Warry
Viva advice
Mike is very sceptical about the application of pXRF to CBM, perhaps as a result of the ambiguous results in some of Sara Machin's analyses
Expect him to question this during the viva, perhaps make a strong case that pXRF has confirmed HV results
Also highlight change in approach vs Sara, i.e., sampling of one fresh break per tile but large sample number to try and average everything out
pXRF results also reinforced fabric results to some extent, so multi-scalar analysis drawing together range of evidence
Text-stamped tile distributions
Discussed my views with him in amiable manner, though both of us had our own opinions
Enjoyed the discussion! Looking forward to seeing what he thinks of my thesis and papers
He was clearly hoping to find a TPF Magistrate tile, but that has not yet come to light and I strongly doubt it will
Other stuff
He confirmed that text-stamps pretty much only occurred on non-combed tiles, e.g., tegulae and bricks