News & Updates

Found on the shores of Kent...

Mudlarker Steve Trim has kindly provided us with this account of his fascinating discovery of a ‘Highgate Wood style beaker’ on the Thames foreshore in Kent.  

"Several years ago, while walking the foreshore along the Thames Estuary in Kent, I came across a pot base exposed by erosion. Knowing that Roman material had been recorded as being found from this particular spot I carefully dug around the base and extracted it from the thick gloopy clay that makes up this part of the Thames.

Luckily, there were several other pieces of this vessel in the mud beneath the base and I soon managed to reconstruct most of the pot from these sherds – revealing a rather nice Roman poppyhead beaker.

During a subsequent visit to the Museum of London I found an identical (but larger) beaker on display; listed as being made in the Highgate Wood area of North London. These beakers were made by the Highgate Wood potters during the 2nd Century.

The pale circle on the front of the beaker is due to the vessels having been stacked alternatively vertically/horizontally in the kiln – the circle being where the mouth of the adjacent vessel was stacked alongside.

These vessels are commonly found during archaeological investigations in London but are rarely found in the part of Kent where this particular beaker was discovered – although several years later a nice sherd of a similar beaker, but highly burnished and black in colour, was found just a few feet away from the original find-spot. There is a strong possibility that this beaker was made by the Highgate Wood potters as well.