KDD99 - Crossley Estate, Kidderminster, Worcestershire

Ceramic Building Materials

by S Garside-Neville

Introduction

One large box of material, weighing 20.490kg was submitted for examination by Cotswold Archaeological Trust. The material is of post medieval date, and comprises brick and tile, and one piece of glazed earthenware pottery.

Post medieval material

Brick and tile is present. There are several sizes of brick which, allied with different fabrics and features of manufacture point to varied dates and sources. Some of the bricks were covered in mortar, and/or were unwashed which made observation of some of these traits difficult to observe. Many of the bricks are slop moulded (where the brick mould is only wetted and not sanded) with a fine sanded base. The complete brick from 270 is slop moulded, and has a fine sanded base with some traces of straw marks. The arrises (edges of the brick) are a little uneven. This brick is probably the earliest in the sample, and has an estimated date of around the 17th and 18th centuries. The bricks from 263 were worn, and probably burnt, so that they must have been used in a room or feature that took its toll on the fabric of the structure in some way. Two bricks from 249 had signs of painting and plastering.

Roofing tile is present in contexts 249 and 250. There is one example of a nib tile from 249. This example is overfired and misshapen. The handmade nib is on the smooth side of the tile which would mean that its rougher sanded side would have faced the elements. It is possible that this tile is medieval in date, however, it is residual. The fragments of tile from 250 do not show any method of suspension, so can only be classified as plain tile. However, the finishing of these tiles hints at mechanised manufacture, and these may well be later in date than the nib tile from 249.

Material from contexts 249, 250 260, and 266 showed signs of reuse, in the form of mortar along broken edges.

Fabrics

Although the size of the sample is quite small, it has been possible to observe some general trends. Fabrics F2, F3, F5, and F7 all appear to be very similar with varying degrees of quartz. These are probably a local product. F1 and F4 though orange in colour are not very similar, with F1 having silty bands and F4 being a hard fabric without silty bands. F6 is a modern, highly processed fabric.

Fab No	Form	Brief description
F1	Brick	Light orange, frequent silty bands, soft
F2	Brick	Purple/red, hard
F3	Plain	Purple/brown, silty bands, hard
F4	Plain	Orange, occasional mica, hard
F5	Nib	Purple/red, sandy, hard
F6	Brick	Dirty brown/orange, crumbly
F7	Brick	Purple/red, sandy, hard, similar to F5

Table 1 - Fabrics

Conclusion

This building probably dates to the 18th century, and continued in use into the 19th century.

Most of the ceramic building material was from phases 1 and 2. Nothing can be said regarding the bricks from the tanks from phase 3, the blue, yellow and red bricks, which were not included in the sample.

It is recommended that some items of this sample be retained. Those items for dispersal are indicated by a '2' in the comments box of the written recording forms.

Further work could be carried out by visiting the brick collection of the Avoncroft Museum of Buildings in Bromsgrove (Contact: Michael Thomas, tel: 01527 831363), and seeing if any of the retained samples match with that collection. Checking the Trade Directories of the Kidderminster area for local brickmakers might help in pinpointing suppliers (and dates), and possibly the types of bricks that were manufactured.
Context Listing

Cxt	Fab	Form	Len	Bre	Th	Comments	Date range	Spot date
249	F0	POT	0	0	12	REUSED; BLACK GLAZE	18-19TH	18-19TH
	F5	NIB	0	0	14	MIS-SHAPEN; NIB ON SMOOTHED SIDE	MED-PM
	F2	BRICK	0	0	0	REUSED; PLASTERED OVER	PM
	F2	BRICK	0	0	0	REUSED; OVER FIRED	PM
	F1	BRICK	0	0	0		PM
	F2	BRICK	0	114	79	FABRIC UNCERTAIN; REUSED; PAINTED STRETCHER	18-19TH
250	F4	PLAIN	0	0	16	REUSED	PM	18-19TH
	F3	PLAIN	0	180	13		PM
	F3	PLAIN	0	0	0	7 MEDIUM FRAGS	PM
	F3	PLAIN	0	0	14		PM
	F2	BRICK	0	117	73	REUSED	18-19TH
258	F6	BRICK	0	120	75		19TH	19TH
260	F1	BRICK	0	0	64	REUSED; SLOP MOULDED; FINE SANDED BASE	18TH	18TH
263	F2	BRICK	238	*107	85	HEAVY; BURNT; WORN STRETCHER; *MINIMUM BREADTH MEASUREMENT; GLAZED/VITRIFIED SURFACE	19TH	19TH
	F2	BRICK	224	*91	77	*MINIMUM BREADTH MEASUREMENT; BURNT; HEAVY; WORN STRETCHER	19TH
266	F1	BRICK	0	0	62	SLOP MOULDED; FINE SANDED BASE	18TH	18TH
	F1	BRICK	0	0	53	SLOP MOULDED; FINE SANDED BASE	18TH
	F1	BRICK	0	0	0	3 FRAGMENTS	PM
	F2	BRICK	0	0	0	REUSED	PM
270	F7	BRICK	235	110	60	SLOP MOULDED; ROUGH ARRISES; FINE SANDED BASE; FEW STRAW MARKS ON BASE	17-18TH	17-18TH

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