Pre-Flavian Kilns at Greenhouse Farm and the Social Context of Early Roman Pottery Production in Cambridgeshire

Abstract

he Claudio-Neronian kilns at Greenhouse Farm are one of the few extensively excavated pottery production sites of this period in Cambridgeshire. The analysis presented in this paper attempts to do justice to this fact as well as touching on some broader themes; divided in two parts, the first discusses the site, kilns and pottery production, the second tackles the broader issue of early (i.e. pre-Flavian) pottery production in the region. Apart from the military kilns associated with Longthorpe in Peterborough,1 the only other comparable site of this date in the county is that at War Ditches, Cherry Hinton, which lies only 3.5 km south of Greenhouse Farm and at which several phases of salvage work were undertaken as the site was gradually quarried away early in the last century.2 On a smaller scale, recent excavations at Blackhorse Lane, Swavesey have found two kilns of a similar date,3 while another first-century kiln was found in the 1950s at Water Newton.4