278
THE ESSEX NATURALIST
PUDDINGSTONE QUERN DISCOVERED
AT FINCHINGFIELD
BY ERNEST A. RUDGE, PH.D., M.SC.
A QUERN of the "puddingstone" type was discovered by the writer in the
garden of Cabbaches, the property of Miss P. M. Legge, at Finchingfield,
Essex, during July 1950.
There is strong presumptive evidence that the two stones, found within
twenty yards of each other, are components of the same original quern.
The nether stone was found as a garden adornment before the front
entrance of the house. Miss Legge mentioned having seen another like it
"with a hole in the top" in the waste ground adjacent to her garden. A
search produced this upper stone, buried in rubble.
Miss Legge has kindly permitted the writer to reassemble the quern for
exhibition purposes.
This type of quern is fully described by E. Cecil Curwen in Antiquity,
XV, p. 15 (1941), who estimates the period a.d. 50-150 as the probable date
of production.
The Finchingfield quern is twelve inches in diameter, and nearly twelve
inches in overall height. The upper stone is bun shaped, and is provided
with a feed-chute and blind hole for a handle. The nether stone is provided
with a hole for a spindle. The remains of an iron spindle can be seen on
the under surface, suggesting that originally an iron rod passed completely
through this stone to engage in a rynd in the upper stone.
The grinding surfaces are slightly concave.
The specimen has been restored with spindle, rynd, and handle as closely
as possible in accordance with the observations of Curwen (loc. cit.).
Medieval Tile-Kiln at Stebbing, Essex.—In the autumn of 1949, Mr.
Holland, a farmer at Stebbing, had reported to a local amateur archaeologist,
Mr. Campen, the presence of quantities of roofing tile scattered over a small
part of one of his fields.
Investigation showed three slight depressions, where ploughing conditions
changed and tile abounded. Among many fragments of ordinary flat tile
about 9 mm. thick there was one, and one only, of considerably greater
thickness with a portion of a pattern in yellow glaze—an "encaustic floor
tile".
The farmer and his son therefore took an opportunity in early spring of
1950 to dig out the site and found the arches, flues, and hearth of a medieval
tile kiln, itself built of tiles and clay and in a remarkably good state of
preservation.
At the request of Mr. Hull, Curator of Colchester Museum, who had
inspected the excavation, I visited the site which is almost exactly half a mile
due south of Stebbing Church tower, made measurements and took eight
photographs.
The kiln was some ten feet long in front of the hearth, and the overall
length, including the hearth, was 13ft. 3in.; the width was uniformly seven
feet.
The kiln consisted of two parallel rows each of eight transverse flat-topped
flue arches, with a longitudinal partition wall 5in. to 10in. wide and 18in.
deep between the rows, and similar side walls, 26in. deep. In plan, each