A Find of Medieval Pottery in Tresco Channel, Isles of Scilly

The assemblage of pottery recovered from Tresco Channel, Isles of Scilly, is by far the largest underwater find of medieval ceramics ever made off British waters and is arguably one of the most important medieval pottery finds of recent years in the British Isles. The collection is dominated by Trench wares, with about half the sherds coming from the Saintonge, about 20% from the lower Seine Valley/Normandy, and a little from Brittany. English pottery makes up most of the other material, the principal sources being central southern England (probably representing trade with Southampton) and the Bristol area, but there are also finds from Cornwall, the Exeter area and other sites in south-west England. Current dating of some of the ware types represented is not entirely consistent; a case is made for dating most of the material to c 1250-80, with some earlier sherds. Programmes of ICP analysis have been carried out on the Saintonge and northern French wares – the former the most substantial programme of chemical analysis of such imports undertaken in the UK. Petrological and ICP analyses also throw light on a number of classes of southern English medieval pottery. The find offers dramatic physical evidence for the role of the Isles of Scilly in the medieval shipping routes between France, Britain, Ireland and Iberia, for which some documentary evidence also survives, while the associated wooden bale pins link the deposit to the wool trade. The pronounced concentration of sherds in a single place, and the fact that all the Saintonge wares which were sampled display a specific chemistry indicating that they come from the same group of kilns, favour the explanation that most of the ceramics represent a single event – either a shipwreck or the loss or disposal of a cargo. So far, however, only limited evidence for the presence of a ship has been found.