page added July 2012 bt Peter Tipton
| OUTSHEET FARM | |
| NMR unique identifier | 247669 |
| Grid Ref | SU84645681 |
| Start date | before 1625 |
| End date | after 1660 |
| OS Raster 2007 | modern housing - The Potteries |
| OS 3rd ed 25" 1911 | |
| OS 2nd ed 25" 1896 | |
| OS 1st ed 25" 1880-88 | |
| OS 1st ed 6" 1874 | |
| Directories | |
| Census Returns | |
| Tithe Map | |
| Old Maps | |
| Biographies | |
| Wills & inventories | Robert Hall 1633, Robert Hall, 1659 |
| Property Records | |
| Excavations | Jeremy Haslam 1972 |
| Finds at: | Guildford Museum |
| Site Protection | None |
Only one phase of production at Outsheet Farm has been professionally investigated. Jeremy Haslam carried out an excavation shortly after the M3 motorway was opened because David Cleeve, a sharp-eyed local archaeologist, had spotted what looked like a pottery kiln revealed during motorway construction. Preliminary documentary evidence about this site has been on this website for a few years now as an answer to Sarah Fry in Borderware Notes & Queries.
Because Felix Holling was still in his final year excavating the Farnborough Hill site when Jeremy Haslam's investigations were undertaken, there was then as yet no fabric and form characterisations for Borderware to enable Haslam to date his finds.
Haslam therefore concluded in his 1975 paper in Post-Medieval Archaeology:
"pottery finds from the site are from a single 'closed' group and are therefore of roughly similar date. There is no internal dating evidence for these finds, but a fairly accurate date range can be derived from the several parallels of their forms with other more readily dateable ceramic items. The most reliable is the remarkable parallelism in shape between the mugs and cups produced on this site (which formed a fairly specialized and important item of manufacture) and the dated vessels of very similar shape produced in Southwark and/or Lambeth in decorated tin-glazed earthenware."
Haslam's finds were presented to the Guildford Museum and are in storage in Cranleigh. The Farnborough Hill finds have now been fully professionally characterised by Jacqui Pearce (Museum of London Archaeology) as a result of a five year project sponsored by Guildford Museum and MOLA, and funded by the the Heritage Lottery Fund and a large number of other supporters. The results can be read in Jacqui's book Pots and Potters in Tudor Hampshire, available from Guildford Museum or the Museum of London.
A thorough modern investigation of the Outsheet Pottery finds is urgently required to take the study of 'Surrey-Hampshire border ware' into the 1600s since there are only very few groupings of finds that can be directly related to potteries worked by potters who can be readily identified from documentary sources. It is a very great pity that the pottery now obliterated by the path of the M3 was not investigated further, however briefly, at the time. It is apparent from Haslam's conclusions that the two Robert Halls, father and son, were experimenting with new ceramic technology. This should now be viewed in the light of Jacqui Pearce's recent conclusions regarding the import of 16th century ceramic technology from the Rhineland to Farnborough Hill.
Back to Borderware Notes & Queries
Back to Borderware after 1700