Page:The New Forest - its history and its scenery.djvu/234

Rh the coarsest kind, principally pieces of bowls and shallow dishes, and, perhaps, though of a different age, not so unlike as might at first sight be supposed to the

These appear to be the only kilns which, perhaps from the unfitness of the clay, were worked in this part of the Forest, and were used only in manufacturing the most necessary utensils in daily life.

Of far greater extent are the works at Sloden, covering several acres. All that remains of these, too, are, I am sorry to say, mere fragments of a coarse black earthenware. And although I opened the ground at various points, I never could meet with anything perfect. Yet the spot is not without great interest. The character and nature of the south-western slope exactly coincide with Colt Hoare's description of Knook Down and the Stockton Works. Here are the same irregularities in the ground, the same black mould, the same coarse pottery, the same banks, and mounds, and entrenchments, all indicating the settlement of a Romano-British population. Half-way down the hill, not far from two large mounds marking the sites of kilns, stretch trenches and banks showing the spaces within which, perhaps, the potters' huts stood, or where the cultivated 216