John Cotter
Canterbury's Archaeology 1990-1991, Canterbury Archaeological Trust
Introduction
The Tyler Hill pottery industry
Brick and tile-making at Tyler Hill and the Blean
Introduction
In March and April 1991 a field-walking survey as conducted by members of the Trust in the Tyler Hill-Broad Oak area, little more than a mile to the north of Canterbury. The aim of this was to identify sites of archaeological importance well in advance of any future development in the area, particularly the proposed new reservoir whose construction could provide an opportunity to investigate part of the extensive medieval ceramics industry centred on Tyler Hill.
The results of the field-walking campaign proved to be very promising and several important new archaeological sites and features were discovered all of which will be investigated more closely in due course. Evidence of prehistoric and Roman activity in the area was encountered, but the most extensive traces to survive were those associated with the medieval pottery and tile industry. Within the survey area the highest concentration of ceramic debris and wasters (reject pottery and tile) came from fields near the crossing point of the Sarre Penn stream and the Hackington Road at Tyler Hill. The existence of medieval kilns at this location had been known for some time, but the 1991 survey mapped out its extent for the first time and most significantly discovered a large pit of 13th-century pottery wasters indicating an undiscovered pottery kiln nearby. A follow-up visit after ploughing in November resulted in the location of two previously unknown tile kilns and the collection of numerous fragments of plain and decorated medieval floor tiles.
Over the years a considerable amount of archaeological work has taken place around Tyler Hill and the Forest of Blean, but remarkably little of this has been published and there is still no general account of the pottery and tile industry available to interested members of the public. In view of recent fieldwork this seems a convenient point to remedy this situation and it is hoped that the following rather selective summary will go some way towards filling this gap.
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The Tyler Hill pottery industry
Forgotten for centuries, the medieval pottery industry had a rude re-awakening one morning in June 1942 when a German bomb fell in the woods near Cheesecourt Gate, Tyler Hill, and landed on the site of a medieval pottery kiln. Masses of pottery wasters were recovered from the crater and a sample of these was published soon afterwards. This 1942 article still remains the most important account of the industry although much has been learnt since then.
Tyler Hill was a natural location for a medieval ceramics industry. Locally outcropping London clay was ideal for pottery, water was plentiful and there was an abundant supply of wood for fuel to hand from the Forest of Blean. Domesday Book (c. 1086) records that, in the time of Edward the Confessor (1042-66), the parish of Hackington (which included Tyler Hill) was held by the burgesses of Canterbury. Thus from an early date the fortunes of Tyler Hill and Canterbury were closely entwined and it was undoubtedly the demand for pottery in the city that sparked off the whole process.
Exactly when pottery was first made at Tyler Hill is not known but petrological analysis has shown that the fabric (i.e. clay) of late Saxon pottery in Canterbury is very similar to that of medieval Tyler Hill ware which suggests that pottery production could have begun there as early as the 9th century AD. The activities of medieval potters rarely attracted the attention of scribes or chroniclers so that medieval documents tend to be of very limited use in reconstructing the history of pottery and tile making. However, we do at least know the names of a few potters who were working in Hackington in the early 13th century: Edulf, Godwin and Wimund le Poter ('the potter') are all mentioned in the Kent Feet of Fines for the year 1215. The name Tyler Hill is itself an obvious reference to pottery and tile making, although it is not recorded before 1304, by which time we know from archaeological sources that there had been a ceramics industry in the area for at least 150 years.
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The earliest evidence of pottery production in the Tyler Hill area comes from Brittoncourt Farm where earlier fieldwork has revealed pottery wasters and kiln debris dating to the middle of the 12th century. This type of pottery is generally known as early medieval sandy ware. Plain cooking pots with typically medieval sagging bases were the commonest products. Some of the Brittoncourt pots are particularly interesting as they show a strong north French influence in the form of their collared rims and roulette decoration. Quite possibly they were copying the wares of a French potter who operated a kiln in Pound Lane, Canterbury, at around the same time, or they were copying imported French pottery.
Spouted pitchers identical to those from Brittoncourt Farm have been found beneath buildings erected c. 1160-65 in the precincts of Canterbury Cathedral suggesting that their production could have been underway by the 1140s or 1150s. A few of the Brittoncourt pieces are glazed and thus represent the earliest dated examples of glazed wares produced in Kent. Evidence of the growing importance of Tyler Hill during the 12th century is provided by the presence of Brittoncourt-type pitchers on an increasing number of Kentish sites including Dover, Folkestone, Stonar, Wingham and Romney Marsh.
Towards the end of the 12th century, a better quality fabric was manufactured, still sandy but less porous than before. One curiosity was the production of cooking pots dusted with crushed marine shell. This effect seems to have been purely decorative and probably copied the genuinely shelly fabrics which were popular elsewhere in Kent.
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Most local pottery of this date was probably hand-made but finished-off on a turntable. It was not until c. 1200-50 that Tyler Hill potters seem to have been fully proficient with the faster type of potter's wheel capable of producing wheel-thrown pottery. This has the advantage of allowing neater, more symmetrical pots to be produced as well as taller forms such as jugs. At the end of the 12th century, the pottery type that is commonly recognised as Tyler Hill ware began to be made. This has a hard sandy fabric, generally orange or brick-red but not infrequently dark grey or even patchy orange and grey. It is often glazed either orange or a patchy dark green. Jugs formed a large part of the overall output and were traded greater distances than more utilitarian products such as cooking pots, bowls and frying pans. Jug shapes are typically medieval, tall and baluster-shaped, pear-shaped or squat and globular and almost always with deeply thumbed and frilled bases.
Decoration took many forms. Earlier jugs are characterised by combed decoration and broad strap handles with deep stabbing and thumbed edges. Contrasting white clay (slip) could be added to the surface either as an all-over paint, which was then green glazed, or more usually as applied or smeared-on strips arranged in simple geometric patterns. Rows of thumbed impressions on the body were also common, and plain horizontal grooves, possibly imitating metal vessels were always very common. Unusual forms such as face jugs were made by applying extra pieces of clay and modelling them to the required shape. Earlier jugs are a little more individual, reflecting a mixture of influences from outside the county. Other influences came from London and perhaps the north-east of England where face jugs were very popular in the 13th and 14th centuries. But sometimes a mixture of influences occur on the same jug showing that Tyler Hill potters were not too bothered about producing accurate copies of anything in particular but picked and mixed outside fashions to suit their own or their customers' tastes.
Between c. 1275 and 1350, Tyler Hill ware moved into a phase of mass production. The vast majority of jugs were plain and utilitarian with few concessions to aesthetics. While the fabric became gradually harder, the colouring (firing) was much more irregular. Patchy orange-greys became common and vessels were often slightly warped or scarred by contact with other vessels in the kiln stack; all suggestive of inadequate kiln control and of a concentration on quantity rather than quality.
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Although several tile kilns have been excavated in the area and we know the site of one 12th-century pottery kiln, no definite example of a medieval pottery kiln has yet been excavated at Tyler Hill. This is odd given the otherwise abundant evidence of pottery production here. One suggestion is that the tile kilns found could have served for firing tile and pottery. Although unusual, this practice is documented elsewhere and could just as easily have happened here. This might account for the decrease in quality of Tyler Hill ware in the later 13th and 14th centuries; more pots could be fired but perhaps it was more difficult to control a large tile kiln than a smaller purpose-built pottery kiln.
Jugs would mainly have been used for serving wine and fetching water. We can be reasonably sure of the latter function owing to two remarkable discoveries in recent years of complete Tyler Hill jugs from medieval wells. One well in Canterbury yielded over 70 restorable jugs while another well at Worth near Deal yielded at least 20. These apparently had been lowered on ropes but inevitably over the years many jugs became broken as they hit against the stone-lined sides of the well.
Cooking-pots, and to a lesser extent bowls, were also very common. Thumbed strips of clay were often fixed to the sides and even across the undersides of the larger vessels to give them extra strength.
Several quite unusual vessel types formed part of the output of the Tyler Hill kilns. Particularly notable was the production of frying pans, chimney-pots and candlesticks, as well as louvers or roof-ventilators and fire-covers. Another idiosyncratic trait of Tyler Hill ware is the profusion of stabbing or pricking found on rims, handles and sometimes all over the body of some vessels. This was a functional rather than decorative feature, being designed to facilitate adequate drying-out of the clay so as to avoid the explosion and wastage of vessels in the kiln. Nevertheless its excessive use at Tyler Hill is particularly distinctive and a useful aid to identifying this ware.
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Tyler Hill was undoubtedly Kent's most important medieval pottery industry. At its peak (c. 1275-1350), it had a virtual monopoly over east Kent. Smaller quantities have been identified 20 miles away to the south-west in the Romney Marsh and as far away as Dartford, 40 miles to the north-west, suggesting that some Tyler Hill ware could have reached London. West of Canterbury and Faversham there was competition from other smaller potteries such as Potters Corner, Ashford and possibly Maidstone, while south-west Kent was served to some degree by the Rye kilns (Sussex), just as north-west Kent was served by wares from London and Surrey. Overseas trade in Tyler Hill ware is likely to have been on a casual basis and was not economically important. The continent already had its own highly developed pottery industries and Tyler Hill ware could never have been much of a threat. Nevertheless, as it was so common at the important medieval ports of Dover and Sandwich, a scatter of Tyler Hill finds along the opposite coastline of France and the Low Countries is only to be expected. This seems confirmed by the discovery of a late medieval Tyler Hill jug at Gravelines in northern France. There are even reports of another pot at Hamburg in Germany.
Late Tyler Hill ware (c. 1375-1500) is often very hard, over-fired and dark grey with a dark brown lustrous glaze. The fabric is characterised by reddish inclusions of 'grog' or poorly mixed clay. Decoration in general became rarer. Jugs were normally squat or globular but small conical drinking jugs were also made. There were large jars called cisterns made to hold ale or other liquids; these had a bung-hole near the base so that the liquid could be drawn off by removing a stopper or turning a simple tap. Cooking pots and other jars continued to be a staple product of the industry. By now, however, the earlier types of squared or 'hammer-head' rims were joined by new types of internally hollowed rim designed to take a lid while some cooking pots made a curious return to the simpler rim forms of the 11th and 12th centuries.
A new range of unusual vessel forms came into production (or became commoner in this phase of the industry), some of which were deliberately industrial rather than domestic in function. Among the new forms available were chafing dishes, a sort of early plate-warmer or portable stove which burned charcoal or glowing embers from the fire. Then there was a variety of small dishes or trays for table condiments such as salt and pepper or other spices. Vessels unconnected with food or its preparation included neatly interlocking drain-pipes, and occasionally money boxes with a narrow slit to take the thinner hammered coins of those times. Strangest of all, perhaps, were those vessels with a purely industrial function such as what was probably a distilling jar used by alchemists and apothecaries for the preparation of chemicals including acids, alcohol and medicines. Some curious trough-like vessels may have been used for making candles.
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As the 15th century progressed, pottery making at Tyler Hill appears to have declined until, by the early 16th century, it ceased altogether. Smoother, lighter, less sandy red wares were gaining in popularity over much of south-east England at this time and the older sandy ware industries suffered as a consequence. Possibly the new smooth wares were produced at Tyler Hill for a short while but perhaps the clays there were unsuitable and the potters moved on. Changes in social habits, in cooking and fashion all had repercussions for the pottery industry. Metal vessels were now cheaper and more easily available than before, and then there were more serviceable and attractive stoneware vessels imported from Germany in ever greater numbers. All of these factors played a part in the decline of old and decadent pottery industries such as that at Tyler Hill.
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Brick and tile-making at Tyler Hill and the Blean
This, if anything, was even more highly developed than the pottery industry and long outlived it, surviving well into the post-medieval period. Tyler Hill is best known to archaeologists and art historians for its medieval decorated floor tiles, even though these must have formed only a small proportion of the total ceramic output.
For most of the medieval period, the main output of the Tyler Hill kilns consisted of plain roof tiles or peg tiles. The revival of tile-making in the Canterbury area is as old as any documented in the country. After a disastrous fire at Canterbury Cathedral in 1174 which spread from the thatched roofs of nearby shops, the monks of Canterbury ordered that hence forward all new shops near the cathedral must be roofed with non-combustible tile. These earlier roof tiles would almost certainly have been made at Tyler Hill where the pottery industry was already well established.
Decorated floor tiles were first produced locally at a kiln in Clowes Wood, a little north of Tyler Hill. Clowes Wood tiles combine inscribed decoration with the use of white slip and clear glaze. There is some dispute as to the dating of these tiles but the latest research favours a date in the 1170s and 1180s. Remarkably this would then make the Clowes Wood workshop one of the earliest in Europe to produce white-slipped floor tiles. Tiles of this group are known from a number of religious houses in Canterbury and also from Faversham Abbey.
The Clowes Wood tiles represent an isolated precursor of the main Tyler Hill decorated floor tile industry which did not appear until a full century later. This second factory was probably established c. 1285-90 almost certainly by a group of Parisian tilers who settled at Tyler Hill at the behest of the church authorities in Canterbury. The floor tiles have a red sandy fabric which provides a contrast for stamped designs inlaid with white slip and then glazed. Square and segmental mosaic tiles are also known as well as plain glazed floor tiles. Slip-decorated floor tiles show a great variety of designs; prominent among them are geometric, heraldic and mythological designs as well as plant, animal and occasional human representations. Some Tyler Hill designs are exactly paralleled at the Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Près, Paris, while others, such as the Fleur-de-Lys, also show French influence. With time, the continental influence grew more dilute and new combinations and patterns emerged that are now recognised as typically Tyler Hill.
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Production of slip-decorated floor-tiles at Tyler Hill was confined to the 'boom' period – c. 1285-1350 – during which time the tiles had a distribution covering most of Kent and reaching as far as London and Essex.
Tiles of all sorts would have been in constant demand for the refurbishment of Canterbury's many religious houses. Some of these held large tracts of land in the neighbourhood including Christ Church Priory which had its own 'tylehost' (tile workshop or kiln) at Hackington in 1363. At least five medieval tile kilns have been excavated at Tyler Hill, three of them in the grounds of the University of Kent, and the locations of several others are known dotted around Tyler Hill and Blean Forest. None can definitely be associated with the production of decorated floor tiles, but it seems obvious that some kilns must have produced these alongside the larger volumes of plain roofing tile. All the kilns excavated so far were constructed of roofing tiles bonded with clay. No kiln survived to any great height but in some cases, the tile arches supporting the firing chamber survived intact. In plan some kilns were of the usual rectangular type but some of the university kilns had an unusual bottle-shaped plan, possibly a cross between a tile kiln and a pottery kiln. Those discovered so far are thought to date to the later 13th or early 14th century. One of the university kilns has an archaeo-magnetic date of 1300 AD +-25.
Manufacture of plain roofing tiles and floor tiles outlived the medieval fashion for slip-decorated floor tiles. Brickmaking arrived relatively late on the local scene in the late 14th and 15th centuries. Brick kilns certainly existed locally by the 15th century but were not confined to Tyler Hill. In 1545, the churchwardens' account of St Dunstan's, Canterbury, record the delivery of brick and tile from a certain 'Hamond at Tyle Hylle'. In the 17th century Sir John Hales is said to have had a tile kiln on the south bank of the Sarre Penn stream at Tyler Hill. Other documents of the 17th to 19th centuries, including tithe apportionment awards, are known to contain scattered references to tilers and brick-makers in the area but these have yet to be researched in depth.
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Ceramic activity of one sort or another continued at Tyler Hill for around eight centuries, and perhaps as much as 1,000 years. One of the recurrent themes that makes Tyler Hill so interesting is its French connection, but perhaps this is hardly surprising given Canterbury's proximity to the French mainland and its long tradition of contact with that country. It was, however, an English industry evolving out of a late-Saxon potting tradition. But already by the 9th or 10th century, local potters were producing pottery in the continental fashion including spouted pitchers decorated with a grid of burnished lines ('trellis burnishing') that could be mistaken for genuine imported pieces. In the mid-12th century, the link was renewed when North French-style spouted pitchers with roulette decoration were made at Tyler Hill, while at least one French potter had a kiln within the city walls of Canterbury itself. A century later, in the 1280s, a group of tilers from the Paris area were induced to settle at Tyler Hill and produce decorative floor tiles for the cathedral and other religious houses. Thereafter foreign influence is less obvious; there may have been occasions when the odd French pot was imitated, but certainly for the last 150-200 years of its life, Tyler Hill was pretty much indistinguishable from any other medieval English pottery industry.
Nowadays Tyler Hill is a pleasant rural hamlet but it may not always have been so. In former times, with its sprawl of workshops, stockpiles of brick, tile and fuel, its waster heaps and constant clouds of wood-smoke, it may have been regarded as something of an eyesore. The impact the industry had on the medieval landscape must have been considerable, but of all this only subtle traces now remain. Those sand and clay pits that were not completely filled-in survive now only as ponds or hollows in the fields. Other hollows, bumps and terraces in the sloping fields above the Sarre Penn mark the site of an extensive complex of unexcavated kilns and workshops. In Honey Wood there are low ivy-covered mounds, some of them composed entirely of discarded medieval roofing tiles, and near the war-time bomb-crater, pottery wasters from the obliterated kiln still litter the ground.
The medieval ceramics industry at Tyler Hill and the Blean took the form of a north-south ribbon development alongside the Hackington Road. It was largely concentrated on Tyler Hill itself but pockets of the industry were strung out over an area of at least two miles. Given this considerable geographic extent, it is unlikely that the remains of the industry will be much affected by any one development project. If current proposals for development in the area come to fruition, then any work will hopefully be preceded by a campaign of excavation and fieldwork which should form the basis of a thorough and methodical study of the industry and its product. At the same time, it is hoped that some areas of archaeological importance may be protected so that archaeologists of the future, armed with more sophisticated techniques, might have their own opportunity to re-evaluate this important centre of medieval industry.
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