On such a farmstead a certain amount of industrial or craft working would be expected. There is a possibility that one of the pottery fabrics (TF4) was locally produced, but there is no evidence that this was necessarily by a Blackstone household, in which case they relied totally on imported pottery. The position of the site close to the River Severn and land routes crossing it means they were potentially well placed to do so. However, this was not an unusual situation with regard to pottery by the late Iron Age (see Prehistoric pottery). Similarly, the querns were derived from some distance away. Hardly any of the artefacts, therefore, can be taken to have been produced on the site and even the weights, which usually give a good clue to the local clays, were of two different fabrics, again perhaps indicating that even some of these most basic domestic items were being brought in by trade, although only two examples were recovered. A possible fragment of iron 'currency bar' (Fig. 43, no. 1) would also be indicative of trade, and such fragments have cropped up on agrarian settlement sites in south Worcestershire, as at Beckford (Britnell 1974 and 1975; Hurst in prep. (a)). See specific finds sections below for the results of more detailed analysis of finds from the site.
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Last updated: Wed July 21 2010