Pottery spouted pitcher
Late Saxon, about AD 950-1075
Found during excavations by Winchester Museums Service Archaeology Section at the Brooks Shopping Centre, Winchester in 1987
The pot was thrown on a wheel using a fine sandy clay, glazed greenish orange and decorated by means of a roulette wheel. This kind of pottery is known as Winchester ware, as it is rarely found elsewhere. At the end of the Roman period the concept of the potter's wheel seems to have been lost in Britain, and this pot represents the return of a manufacturing method that seemed new and quite difficult.
It may be that the potters were brought to Winchester from Europe, where Roman-style pottery production continued despite the fall of Rome. If the production site was in Winchester itself, the clay must have been especially imported from further south, as there are no suitable clays here. Perhaps at the time, Winchester's royal and ecclesiatical elite felt that England's capital deserved a pottery industry to match its status.
