Page:The New Forest - its history and its scenery.djvu/239

Rh embankments which mark the Sloden potteries. One is particularly noticeable, measuring twenty-two feet in width, and running in the shape of the letter Z. In the central portion I cut two trenches, but could discover nothing but a circle of charcoal, looking as if it was the remains of a workman's fire, placed on the level of the natural soil. Another trench I opened at the extreme end, as also various pits near the embankment, hut failed to find anything further.

At Ashley Rails, also, close by, stand two more mounds, which cover the remains of more ware. These I only very partially opened, for the black mould was very shallow, and the specimens the same which I had found in Pitt's Wood.

Besides these, there are, as mentioned in the last chapter, extensive works at Black Heath Meadow at the west-end of Linwood, but they are entirely, like those in Sloden, Oakley, and Anderwood, confined to the manufacture of coarse Romano-British pottery. This last ware seems to differ very little in character or form. The same shapes of jars (copied from the Roman lagenæ) were found by Mr. Kell near Barnes Chine in the Isle of Wight, though at Black Heath, as in the other places in the Forest, handles, through which cords were probably intended to pass, with flat dishes, and saucer-like vessels (shaped similar to pateræ), all, however, in fragments, occurred. 221