Page 28 - br-sep-2021

September 2021 September 2021

BERE REGIS HISTORY SOCIETY
Dorset Property Care

Allan Slater
Based in Briantspuddle DOMESTIC POTTERY VESSELS AT BERE
 Services The total number of pottery sherds founds near the known
Villa sites around Bere is now at a total of 7,050 pieces
 Building maintenance
ranging in size from less than a centimetre to much larger
 General joinery pieces, some over ten centimetres. They are of all eras
 Garden maintenance during the previous two thousand years, although the Anglo-Saxon/Viking period
 Garden landscaping (418 to 1066) amounts to only 3.2% of the finds because from the 6th century they
mostly used wooden bowls, which of course, no longer exist in our soil especially.
 Kitchens Whilst sorting and boxing-up our extensive
 Man and digger hire collection it was decided to measure the

diameters of suitable rim-pieces from each
07973 158092 era to find out what sizes were the most
popular by the kiln operators and the
allan@dorsetpropertycare.co.uk customers themselves. Human nature seems
www.dorsetpropertycare.co.uk to remain much the same and it was found
that for the whole 2,000 years the sizes
available were in two inch increments
between 4 inches and 18 inches in diameter.
During the Romano-British era bowls of 12
inches diameter were the most common, then
the next reasonable sample, the Mediaeval
(or 11th to 16th century) again shows that 12
inch diameter bowls were the most common
too. The other sizes were represented in the
finds, with the smaller being soup-type bowls
and the larger being cooking or heating vessels. The final era shown in our finds
was the Early-Modern (1700-1900) and here there was a slight change, with 14
inch bowls being the most numerous. This probably reflects the increasing use of
metal containers for cooking, although the larger sizes still show in our finds.
This might be the first time that this sort of analysis has been made, especially for
finds at Bere Regis. It is somewhat reassuring that the sizes of our pots, pans and
bowls show a consistency that might still be seen in our own kitchens.
John Pitfield, Project Secretary

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