II.—The Medieval Pottery Kilns at Laverstock, near Salisbury, Wiltshire

Abstract

This medieval industry was operating one mile south-east of Salisbury at Nat. Grid Ref. SU/160298 (fig. 1). It lay in the Royal Forest of Clarendon, within which there are other hints of the medieval pottery industry. Medieval sherds from Laverstock were first reported by Mr. Frank Stevens in 1940 and in 1955 further finds made during levelling of land formerly used as allotments and from road work were brought into Salisbury Museum. The site was then examined, revealing a twelfth-century cesspit and two pits with pottery wasters of the thirteenth century (one associated with what is now identified as a potters' workshop) but still no kilns. The first kiln was found on a new road line in 1958 and further investigation was aided by a grant from the Ministry of Public Building and Works. During six months trial trenches were opened over 1½ acres; six kilns, two buildings, and eighteen pits (some of them twelfth century) were excavated. Another kiln was found in 1960, and two more in 1963 when a bank at the edge of Duck Lane was levelled, making nine kilns in all. Some were stratigraphically interrelated, and were also in sequence with some pits.