SDO10408 - A group of early 13th century pottery from Sherborne Old Castle and its wider context. Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society

An article concerning a group of 13th century pottery excavated during 1998-9 by Stewart Brown Associates at the rear of the castle’s north curtain wall. The pottery was recovered from the bottom two layers of a pit [126] and a contemporary layer containing domestic debris. With the aid of funding from English Heritage, Allan was able to examine the assemblage using petrological and Inductively-coupled plasma atomic emsission analysis (ICP-AES) as part of a wider study into the medieval ceramics of South Somerset and North Dorset. Allan suggested that the assemblage dated from approximately 1180-1250 AD and that fabric A/B, a flint tempered coarse ware, which accounted for 98% of the assemblage, had a petrological signature which indicated manufacture in a region where streams flow across the Lias below the Upper Greensand outcrop, possibly in the area immediately north of the Blackdown Hills, approximately 35km from Sherborne. Furthermore the chemical analysis suggested that the chemical signature of the Sherborne assemblage was distinct and internally similar and yet different to that from Donyatt, Hermitage or East Devon. The conclusion is that the Sherborne coarse pottery was all manufactured at the same, as yet unidentified, kiln and transported some 35km to the castle.