One of the curiosities associated with Silchester (a Roman town in Hampshire, known to its inhabitants as Calleva Atrebatum after the Iron Age people who previously inhabited the site; see CA 343 and 358) are finds of tiles stamped with the name and titles of Emperor Nero. The first was discovered in 1903-1904, in a pit adjacent to bathhouse remains that the Society of Antiquaries was investigating, and it would be another two decades before a second emerged – a mile and a half to the south, at Little London, in 1926. There, local antiquarian Colonel Karslake was exploring what he thought was a Roman brickyard, though he did not identify any kilns. Further examples of Nero tiles appeared at Silchester in the 1980s, during excavations of the forum basilica, and since then every major archaeological investigation within the town walls has produced more.
Why are these tiles significant? When excavating in the south and east of Britain, the most commonly found Roman artefacts are surely pieces of brick and tile. As these are bulky and take up too much storage space, though, they tend to be ruthlessly discarded, with only the most intrinsically ‘interesting’ examples typically retained – such as decorated pieces, tiles stamped with the maker’s name or initials, or those marked with animal foot-impressions. Records are usually kept, detailing the different types and quantities found in an excavation before disposal, but trying to make sense of what seem, by eye, to be identical or near-identical fabrics remains a challenge, so quantification by fabric on site is still a rarity. As a result, two sets of records exist in tandem: those documenting what brick and tile was consumed at settlement sites, and those concerning tile kilns, and what was produced there. We have all too few examples, however, where it has been possible to link producer and consumer through the study of distribution – even though brick and tile (‘ceramic building material’ or CBM) is one of the best surviving testimonies of a major part of the Roman construction industry.
Returning to the Nero tiles, the key thing about these distinctive artefacts is that they have, so far, not been found anywhere else in Britain other than at Silchester and Little London. What does this mean? To begin to address this question, excavations were carried out at both sites. Within Silchester, we hoped to establish what was being built there during Nero’s reign (AD 54-68). Meanwhile, over at Little London, we aimed to confirm whether or not tile kilns were present and, if so, the range of products created at the site and where in southern Britain, other than at Silchester, they had been used.
