If we turn from the study of salt as one of the staples of world industry to the history of the salt industry in England, we find that it is practically comprised in the records of the development of the trade in rock-salt and brine in the county of Cheshire. The first documentary reference to the existence of saline deposits in this country, as well as the earliest mention of the method of native manufacture and of the introduction of the open-pan system of salt-making, dates from the time of the Roman occupation. The Caesarean soldiers, who penetrated as far north as the Northwich district, found the people obtaining salt by the process of pouring brine upon faggots of charcoal and scraping away the resultant crystalline formation. A little spring which existed at that period in Sheath Street, Northwich, furnished the Romans with a limited supply of brine, and from this source, with the crude plant improvised on the spot, they produced the first salt ever manufactured in England by the boiling of brine in open pans.

The Britons named the brine spring at Nantwich “Hellath Wen,” or the White Pit, on account of the whiteness of the salt produced from its waters; while the spring at Northwich received the name of “Hellath Du,” or the Black Pit. The suffix “wich” may have been introduced into Cheshire direct from the Vikings of the North, or brought there by way of the south-eastern counties. In Camden’s Britannia (published in Latin in 1607, and translated by Philemon Holland, 1610), we read that the word Wiccij “may seeme to have beene derived of those salt pittes that the old Englishmen in their language named Wiches ,” and William Smith, a Cheshire Man and author of a work which is known as King’s Vale Royal (1656 edition), says: “The house in which the salt is boiled is called the Wychhouse; whence may be guessed what wych signifies, and why all those towns where there are salt-springs or salt made are called by the name of wych , viz., Namptwych , Northwych , Middlewych , Droitwych .” But the Norse word wig and the Anglo-Saxon wic signified, in the original, a dwelling-place, and in the latter form of wich , it is seen in the names of Woolwich, Norwich, Harwich, Sandwich, etc. The Norse and Danish pirates who visited our coasts to pillage and procure salt, established wigs —afterwards wiches or hamlets—on the bays and inlets, and wherever they located themselves they proceeded to make bay-salt. The word wich , in course of time, became identified not with the village but with the salt manufacture that was carried on there, and when the Cheshire towns developed the industry they may easily have adopted the nomenclature that was already regarded as indicative of the manufacture.

In the records of Droitwich, which was also called Durt-wich “by reason of the wettish ground on which it stands,” we learn that in the year 816, Kenulph, King of the Mercians, gave Hamilton and ten houses in Wich together with their salt-furnaces, to the church of Worcester, and that in 906 the same church was endowed by Edwy, King of England, with Fepstone and five salt-furnaces; but the next earliest references to the Cheshire Wiches must be searched for among the entries in Domesday Book, which was prepared between 1084 and 1086. William the Conqueror’s authorized inquiry as to the several places in which salt was being made, and the persons who had held proprietorial rights in them since the time of Edward the Confessor, was productive of much detailed information. From the zincograph reproduction of the original made by Mr. William Beaumont in 1863, it would appear that the Cheshire brine-springs and salt works were strictly held, and were subject to certain well-defined customs. In several localities the existence of solitary salt-houses is mentioned, and it would seem safe to infer that the supply of brine was obtained in the vicinity and the salt was only made for local consumption. Salt-making for commercial purposes was confined to Nantwich, in Warmundestron Hundred, and Northwich and Middlewich in the Hundred of Mildestvic, and, although no figures relating to output or revenues are given, the laws governing the trade, the prices charged, and the method of dividing the moneys accruing from rents and sales are concisely set forth in the following paragraphs—

“Mildestvic hundred. Hugh and William held of the Earl Rode Godric and Ravesa held it for two manors and were free men.”

“In the same hundred of Mildestvic there was a third Wich called Norwich (Northwich), which was in farm at eight pounds. In it there were the same laws and customs as in the other Wiches, and the King and the Earl divided the receipts in the like manner. All the thanes who held salt-houses in this Wich gave no Friday’s boilings of salt the year through. Whoever brought a cart, with two or more oxen, from another shire, gave 4 pence for the toll. A man from the same shire gave for his cart 2 pence within the third night after his return home. If he allowed the third night to pass, he was fined 40 shillings. A man from another shire paid 1 penny for a horse load. But a man from the same shire paid 1 styca within the third night after his return, as aforesaid. A man living in the same hundred, if he carted salt about through the same county to sell, gave a penny for every cart, for as many times as he loaded it. If he carried salt on a horse to sell, he gave 1 penny at Martinmas. Whoso did not pay it at that time was fined 40 shillings. All the other customs in the Wiches are the same. This manor was waste when Earl Hugh received it. It is now worth 35 shillings.”

“Nantwich.—In King Edward’s time there was a Wich in Warmundestron hundred, in which there was a well for making salt, and between the King and Earl Edwin there were 8 salt-houses, so divided that of all their issues and rents the King had two parts and the Earl the third. But besides these, the Earl had one salt-house adjoining his manor of Acatone (Acton) which was his own. From this salt-house the Earl had sufficient salt for his house throughout the year. But if he sold any from thence, the King had twopence, and the Earl a third penny, for the toll. In the same Wich many men from the country had salt-houses, of which this was the custom—

“From our Lord’s Ascension to Martinmas, anyone having a salt-house might carry home salt for his own house. But if he sold any of it either there, or elsewhere in the county of Chester, he paid toll to the King and the Earl. Whoever after Martinmas carried away salt from any salt-house except the Earl’s, under his custom aforesaid, paid toll, whether the salt was his own or purchased. These aforesaid 8 salt-houses of the King and the Earl, in every week that salt was boiled or they were used on a Friday, rendered 16 boilings of salt, of which 15 made a horse-load. From our Lord’s Ascension to Martinmas, the salt-houses of the other men did not give these Friday’s boilings. But from Martinmas to our Lord’s Ascension, these boilings were given according to custom, as from the salt-houses of the King and the Earl. All these salt-houses, both of the lord and other people, were surrounded on one part by a certain river, and on the other part by a ditch. Whosoever committed a forfeiture within these bounds, might make amends, either by the payment of 2 shillings, or by 30 boilings of salt, except in the case of homicide, or of a theft, for which the thief was adjudged to die. These last, if done here, were dealt with as in the rest of the shire. If out of the prescribed circuit of the salt-houses, any person within the county withheld the toll, and was convicted thereof, he brought it back and was fined 40 shillings, if a free man; or if not free, 4 shillings. But if he carried the toll into another shire, where it was demanded the fine was the same. In King Edward’s time, this Wich, with all pleas in the same hundred, rendered 21 pounds in farm. When Earl Hugh received it, except only one salt-house, it was waste. William Maldebeng now holds of the Earl the same Wich, with all the customs thereto belonging, and all the same hundred, which is rated at 40 shillings, of which 30 shillings are put on the land of the said William, and 10 shillings on the land of the Bishop, and the lands of Richard and Gilbert which they have in the same hundred, and the Wich is let to farm at 10 pounds.”

“Middlewich.—In Mildestvich hundred there is another Wich between the King and the Earl. There, however, the salt-houses were not the lord’s, but they had the same laws and customs that have been mentioned in the above-mentioned Wich, and the customs were divided between the King and the Earl in the same manner. This Wich was let to farm for 8 pounds and the hundred wherein it was, for 40 shillings. The King had two parts, and the Earl the third. When Earl Hugh received it, it was waste. The Earl now holds it, and it is let to farm for 25 shillings, and two wain-loads of salt. But the hundred is worth 40 shillings. From these two Wiches, whoever carried away bought salt in a wain drawn by four oxen or more, paid 4d. for the toll; but if by two oxen, 2 pence if the salt were two horse-loads. A man from another hundred gave 2d. for a horse-load. But a man of the same hundred gave only a halfpenny for a horse-load. Whoever loaded his wain so that the axle broke within a league of either Wich, gave 2 shillings to the King’s or the Earl’s officers, if he were overtaken within the league. In like manner, he who loaded his horse, so as to break its back, gave 2 shillings if overtaken within the league, but nothing if overtaken beyond it. Whoever made two horse-loads of salt out of one, was fined 40 shillings if the officers overtook him. If he was not found, nothing was to be exacted from any other. Men on foot from another hundred buying salt, paid 2d. for eight men’s loads. Men of the same hundred paid 1d. for the same number of such loads.”

The first private record relating to salt appears in the foundation deed of Combermere Abbey, dated 1132, in which Hugh Malbane, the founder, caused it to be written: “And I also grant to the same monks the fourth part of the town of Wych, and tythe of my salt and of the salt pits that are mine, and salt of Blessed Mary the Virgin, and salt on Friday, and salt for the Abbot’s table as freely as I have it at my table.”

Ancient Deeds in the Record Office contain occasional reference to salt properties in the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries which show that salt was made in limited quantities in Cambridgeshire and at Rye, Mimera, and Brembre (formerly Hayerskys), in the County of Sussex.

Protests against the importation of salt from abroad, and of salt-making by foreigners contrary to the liberties and ancient customs of the borough of Northwich, are recorded in the Harleian MSS. In response to a complaint made on behalf of the burgesses and inhabitants of Northwich concerning the mischievous irregularities committed in the making of salt by “p’sons forrayne and not inhabiting w/thin the Sḍ towne,” King Henry VIII issued an Order to the Justice and Chamberlaine of the County Palatine of Chester to the effect: “WHEREFORE we will and command you that in any case such forrayne p’son or p’sons not inhabiting within the s/^d towne, do, or hereafter at any time shall attempt to use makeing of salt contrary to the lib/^erties and ancient customes of the same within the same towne without lycence of the burgess and the rulers thereof. THAT then without delay ye and ether of you from tyme to tyme upon complaynt or of the rulers and govnors of the same towne do send for all and every such forrayne p’sons as do or hereafter shall attempt to make any salt within the s/^d towne of Northwich contrary to the libties and ancient customes of the same, without the assent and agreem/^t of the s/^d Burgess and ruler by o/^r writts of subp: to appear before you in o/ Castle of Chester at there appearance to punish and reforme them: And also further to order them as right and good conscience shall require according to the lawes and customes heretobefore used now in other wyches there abts w/^thin o/^r s/^d County Palatyne, for the reformacon of such transgressions fayle ye not hereof as ye maye intend to please us.”

In the time of the Tudors, the salt-makers of Cheshire were composed of natives and “forrayners,” or residents born outside the boundaries of the county, and in the Northwich Book of Orders is given a list of ten “outliers” in the town of Northwich who occupied between them no fewer than eighty-nine salt pans or leads. Although we have no information as to the exact size and capacity of the evaporating pans of the period, it is evident that they were made to a regulation scale, and we read that it was the business of an officer of the Court Leet to examine the leads and see that they conformed with the standard dimensions. If the prescribed measurements were exceeded, the official cut a piece out of the corner of the pan with a pair of shears with which he was furnished for the purpose, so as to reduce its capacity to the legal limit.

Only three of these old salt-pans have been recovered, and, of these, one was cut up and sold as old lead. One which was drawn out of the river at Northwich in 1866 was forwarded by the River Weaver Trustees to the Warrington Exhibition, and was transferred subsequently to the Northwich Museum. This pan measures 3 ft. 8 in. long on one side, and 3 ft. 4½ in. on the other; it has a width of 2 ft. 8 in., and is 4 in. deep. The thickness of the lead is about half an inch. and the weight of the pan is 2 cwt., 1 qr. 18 lb. There are raised patterns on each end of the pan, which was evidently cast, and the sides are rounded up from the bottom. In 1878, in the vicinity of Ashton’s Salt Works at Witton, was found a smaller pan made out of a sheet of lead 2 ft. 8 in. square. The sheet was bent up to form a pan and the corners were hammered together. This lead is 25 in. square by 3 in. in depth, and has a capacity of about 7 gallons.

In the early years of the reign of James I we have particulars of the salt districts in Camden’s Britannia, and in a letter received in February, 1605, from Chomley written by one George Johnson. Camden explains that the Cheshire Wiches were so-called because “there bee here very notable salt pits and many salt springs often-time have been found which notwithstanding are stopped up, because it was provided (as wee read) that for the saving of woods, salt should not be boiled but in certain places.”

Meagre as these accounts are in exact particulars, they constitute the only information we have concerning the supply and treatment of brine in England in the early days of the industry, and, consequently, they invite attention. Camden is responsible for the following details—

“At Northwich there is a deep and plentiful brine pit with stairs about it, by which, when they have drawn the water in their leathern buckets, they ascend, half naked, to their troughs and fill them, from whence it is conveyed to the wich-houses about which there stand on every side many stakes and piles of wood.

“Nantwich.—There is but one salt pit here (they call it the brine pit) distant about 14 ft. from the river. From this brine pit they convey water by wooden troughs into the houses adjoining, where there stand ready little barrels, fixed in the ground, which they fill with that water; and at the notice of a bell, they presently make a fire under their leads, whereof they have six in every house for boiling the water. These are attended by ‘Wallers’—a name probably derived from the Anglo-Saxon weallere , a boiler; German, wallen , to boil—who with little wooden rakes, draw the salt out of the bottom of them and put it in baskets, out of which the liquor runs, but the salt remains and settles....

“The depth of the salt springs is in some places not above three or four yards. In Nantwich the pit is full 7 yards (deep) from the footing about the pit: which is guessed to be the natural height of the ground, though the bank be 6 foot higher, accidentally raised by rubbish of long making salt or “walling,” as they call it. In two places within our Township, the spring breaks up so in the meadows as to fret away not only the grass, but part of the earth, which lies like a breach at least half a foot or more lower than the turf of the meadow: and hath a salt liquid ousing (oozing) as it were out of the meed but very gently.

“Droitwich possesses three fountaines yielding plenty of water to make salt of, divided asunder by a little brooke of fresh water passing betweene, by a peculiar gift of nature spring out: out of which most pure white salt is boiled for six months every yeare, to wit, from Midsommer to Midwinter, in many set fornaces round about: wherewith a mighty deal of wood is consumed, Fakenham Forest (where trees grew sometime thicker), and the woods round about, if men hold their peace, will by their thinness, make manifest more and more....”

Of the two wells of salt-water at Middlewich, which are separated by a small brook, we are only told that “one stands not open but at certain set times, because folke willingly steale the watere thereof, as being of great vertue and efficacie.”

More informative on essential points is the unknown correspondent of George Johnson, who writes as follows—

The particulars which are given of the salt manufacture in the Wiches in 1605 and 1607 by George Johnson’s correspondent and by Camden, are repeated with only the slightest variation half a century later in King’s Vale Royal . But in the latter account we are able to glean a little more information about the towns themselves. Concerning Northwich, we are told that it had the mischance to be burnt in July, Anno 1438, and was “most part miserably consumed with fire,” in December, 1583. “But through the Benevolence gathered throughout the Realm, it is new builded, and is in as good case or rather better than before.” The town in 1656 was divided into two parts, one of which was called the Cross, while a “very fair church of stone,” called Northwich Church, stood “without the Town’s-end.” But although it was called Northwich Church, we are told that it was only a chapel and its proper name was Witton; a combination of coincidences which caused the chronicler to conclude “that the town was named first Northwich, after the finding of the salt.” Of Nantwich, we are only informed that the town was visited in 1617 by the gracious King’s Most Excellent Majestie, who, with his own eyes beheld the manner of the brine well and the labours of the drawers of brine—who, in the course of their work, “spend the coldest day in frost and snow, without any clothing more than a shirt with great cheerfulnesse”—and “with his own hand most princely rewarded them.” Middlewich is described by the same authority as no market town: “yet may it pass amongst them, as well for the bigness thereof, as also it hath Burgesses and other privileges, as the other wiches have, yet it hath a small market of flesh and other things every Saturday, and yearly two fairs: that is to say on Ascension Day and St. Luke’s Day. It hath divers streets and lanes, as King Street, Kinderton Street, Wich House Street, Lewis Street, Wheelock Street: Pepper Lane: Cow Lane and Dog Lane. But the chiefest place of all is a broad place in the middest of the Town, in manner of a market place, called the King’s Mexon.”

A large accumulation of matter of great local and antiquarian interest is to be found in the Northwich Book of Orders, the Court Rolls, and the Walling Booke of Northwich, which consist of documents and records relating to the government of the town and the regulation of its salt industry about the middle of the seventeenth century. The “Ancient Customes of the Burrow and Town of Northwich,” the inventory of “The Liberties and Priviledges of Burgesses,” and the Orders “concerning the making of salt,” were collected and set down by Peter Warburton, of Chester, Esquire, Steward of Northwich, and afterwards a Justice of the Court of Common Pleas at Westminster. At a Court held on 18th December, 1608, this compilation, “so full of interest and instruction,” was ratified and confirmed by Thomas Berrington, Gentleman, Steward of the said Court, and a jury of Burgesses, and Thomas Poole, Gentleman, Clerk of the said Court, was instructed to write them into a Booke “to the end the same may remain upon record to future ages.”

The Nine Customes, numbered 10 to 18, which were written in 1638, were supplemented in 1641 by other Nine Customes, numbered 1 to 9, which had been “heretofore omitted merely through forgetfulness.” Of the eighty-four Orders relating to salt-making which appear in these records, the first sixty-one were agreed upon by “The Steward and Jury at Diverse Courts” up to 1629, the seven following were added in 1630, and seven more appeared on the rolls before Master Poole made a fair copy of the Orders in 1638. In the following year eight further regulations were issued. Order No. 84 bears the date of December, 1656, and only three subsequent unnumbered enactments were included up to 1666, when the record comes to an end.

Although these old Orders (1629–1666) include directions relating to the general behaviour of the townspeople, injunctions concerning the sales of liquor and butchers’ meat, the malpractices of begging at men’s doors, piking or stealing wood, “scoulding or chideing ... to the trouble or disquietness of the good and honest neighbours,” and rules for the maintenance of cleanliness in the streets and public places and the publication and preservation of Proclamations put forth by the King, the bulk of the laws are framed in the interests of the staple industry of the district. No detail connected with salt-making, from the drawing of the brine to the transport of the manufactured product, is left to chance or the discretion of the individual. The rights and privileges of Burgesses, and particularly of such as occupy salt-houses or wallings, are set forth in the Ancient Customes, but in all particulars relating to the making of salt, the Orders are paramount and precise. Space does not permit of the reproduction here of the whole of the regulations, but a few of the Items may be quoted as evidence of the care and thoroughness with which they were framed.

“7. Item. It is ordered that no man shall enter into the Lead-looker’s book any more walling or occupation for one Wich-house than six leads walling upon paine for every offence ... 10s.”

“15. Item. That if any Person or Persons receive into their Houses any Wood by Night or by day by the way of Exchange for Candles, Meat or Drink every such Person as well the Changer as the Receiver shall pay fine to the Lord for every default 5s. or to be punished by the Steward.”

“17. Item. That every Waller shall sell the salt she maketh by the Walme or Cranock and not by the sack or load, and at the price which the officers sett down to be the com’on price of the Towne upon pains for every default 3s. and also to make up the full price to her Mr. upon her wages.”

“18. Item. That no Waller nor no other Person shall make any fire in the Wich-house streets in the night time, and every such offence to be presented by the Bailiffe at any single Court and punished by the Steward according to his discretion.”

“22. Item. That no person shall deliver any bryne to be carryed out of this Towne either in Hodge heads or Barrels (except upon Woemen’s heads) upon paine to forfeit to the Lord for every such offence ... 20s.”

“24. Item. That there should be left at every pile made at the end of any Wich-house or Wood roome a yard and a halfe between the said pile and the Crest of the Pavement to the intent that waynes may have better passage upon paine of 6s. 8d. presentable at any single Court.”

“26. Item. It is ordered that no Person from henceforth shall be suffered to wall or occupy any Odd Lead as 3, 5 or 7, but 2, 4 or 6 Leads for avoiding of trouble to the officers except in such case as cannot be remedied upon paine of ... 10s.”

“27. Item. It is ordered that henceforth no Person shall occupie Walling unless they first continue a householder for the space of three years and after such time expired to be allowed by the Steward or his Deputy, and the Lead-lookers (except he be a Burgess) upon paine to forfeit for every lead ... 13s. 4d.”

“33. Item. That all Inhabitants and Occupiers of the Towne do aide and assist lawfully every Officer of the Towne in Executing their office lawfully upon paine every one that offendeth to pay for every offence ... 10s.”

“40. Item. It is ordered that if any Waller be found making of Course Salt when they might make it better if they would, the Lead-lookers or Salt-viewers so finding them and making presentment thereof e’ry such Waller so offending shall fine to yr Lord for e’ry offence therein ... 2d.”

“43. Item. We do also order that every Occupiers’ Leads of this town shall henceforth be made Tenn stone weight a peece to the pan before they be cast, upon paine of the Lead-casters forfeiture to the Lord of this Towne for every default in casting any Leads contrary to this order the sum of ... 10s.”

“63. Item. It is also ordered that every occupier of Walling or his Waller, or his Serv^ts shall weekly make cleane ye pavem^t ag^t their Wich-Houses one yard and a half from the middle of the pavement upon paine to forfeit for every such offence ... 12d.”

Duly set forth in these records are the forms of oaths to be administered by the Court to those who “shall well and truly execute the office” of Constable, Lead-looker, Overseer, Salt-viewer, Assessor, Killer of Salt, Market Looker, Sealer and Searcher of Leather, Ale-Taster; Skavinger, Gutter Viewer, Wood Tender, or Pan Cutter. Each of these important officers in the prescribed form must “swear by the holy Contents of this Booke,” to “spare no man for any love, favour or affection” in the fulfilment of his several duties but “of all Defaults and Defects that you find in the execution of yo^r office you shall present at every Single Court to be holden after such Default made—So help you God.”

The compiler of Vale Royal (1656) does not admit that he is indebted to the Northwich Book of Orders for his information, but he alludes in general terms to the “authentique rules and customes” which regulate the manner of making salt in the Cheshire wiches, and adds: “All these things I leave to be read other where, knowing well their jealous love to be such towards this their beloved commodity as I should soon incur some reprehension for being too busie to look narrowly upon such a beauty.”

In “A Copie of The Walling booke of Northw^ch,” amongst the Harleian MSS., the earliest list of occupiers of wich-houses with the number of leads, together with the names of such persons as had wich-houses of Inheritance in the town, with their number of leads, was compiled in 1565, and gives a total of “five score and thirteene Salt houses and one lead.” A list of owners and of salt-houses arranged in the form of a street directory was drawn up in 1593, and, about 1600, a revised list, compiled in accordance with the location of the houses, and giving the number of leads in each, was supplemented by a street plan of the town. In the list of 1589 it is recorded that—

In the list of 1604, the King appears as the owner of two salt-houses, and it is assumable that His Majesty acquired an additional half of a salt-house in the following year, since, in the more detailed compilation drawn up in 1605, we read that—

The King’s name as the owner of “2½ towle free and fine free” salt-houses heads the list for 1619 and that for 1636–1638. This last contains the names of forty-six lords and owners of salt-houses, having an aggregate of over 400 leads.

It was the custom to repeat the legend either at the beginning or the end of each succeeding list that—

This formula was evidently only a fable. The discrepancy between the figures and the statement was pointed out by a scribe in 1630, who, having cast up the number of leads tabulated in the list of 1589, appended the following note: “These leads answere but unto 308 leads whereas there is 453 leads yearly walled for ut pateat ante: soe that there wanted 145 leads to make up the full accoumpt for 308 leads and 145 leads make but just 453.”

There are about 450 leads accounted for in the next list, which was drawn up in 1593, but the clerk persisted in the assumption that what had been “time out of mynd” could suffer no change, and he formally declared, despite his own figures to the contrary, that “the totall some is 113 four leads and one odde lead, which stand in the Towne rowe as is before written and declared.”

On folio 61 of one of the Harleian MSS., following the list of Northwich salt-owners for the years 1636–38, are undated lists of salt-owners of Middlewich and Nantwich. The clerk admits the incompleteness of the list of twenty-two owners in Middlewich, but he explains that the names he gives are “as manie as I can learne for the p’sent,” and he adds, “But the number of their sev’all and respective howses and leads I cannot learne.” Only five owners appear in the returns for Nantwich, and the meagre particulars that the clerk has been able to acquire respecting the other salt districts of Cheshire are contained in the following note: “There is another Wiche where there is a great store of Salt made in Cheshire And w^ch is of greate Antiquitie called Fulwich, also Durtwich, and my Lo: Brereton is an owner of sev’all wich-houses theire. But whoe are owners of the rest I cannot learne.”

Nantwich was long famous among the Wiches for its production of the finest and best white salt. The Welsh named it Hellath Wen, and the London Magazine, in 1750, translated the words as the “White Salt Town,” but there is no reference to the quality or colour of its output in the present name, which is derived from the Welsh word “nant,” a vale, and the Saxon “wyche.” That its salt was good, plentiful, and of considerable commercial value would seem to be shown by the fact that under the Saxons the supplies were in the hands of the princes and nobles, and William the Conqueror had not been in England more than a year before he divided the salt production of Nantwich between himself and Earl Edwin, who owned some salt-houses in the district.

According to Leland, there were 400 salt works at Nantwich in the reign of Henry VIII, but the number was reduced to 216 under Elizabeth, and in 1624 only 108 were in existence. Nantwich was described in the London Magazine of 1750 as the largest and most considerable town in the county next to Chester, but its salt industry at that period was fast declining. An Act of Parliament which had been obtained in 1734 to extend the navigation of the river Weaver from Winsford to Nantwich, was never put into operation. In 1778 the salt works had been reduced to two, each containing five large pans of wrought iron. The Nantwich salt industry was practically moribund in 1849, but some twenty-five tons per week were produced by one maker until 1856, which is the last year in which salt was made in the district. In 1891 a company was registered for the purpose of acquiring property in Nantwich and manufacturing salt from brine, but the necessary financial support was not forthcoming and the project was abandoned. The decline of the Nantwich salt industry is ascribed in Poole’s History of Cheshire (1778) to various causes, including the frequent destruction by fire of the works in the town—“fourteen of which in the memory of persons living lately, having been destroyed in one day”; to the discovery and exploitation of new salt springs in adjacent localities; and to the superior advantages in the matter of accessibility which were possessed by Northwich and Winsford.

Northwich, described by the Welsh as Hellath-du, became the chief of the Cheshire salt towns in the seventeenth century, and its output of brine is still greater than that of any other district. In 1605, Northwich had 449 leads, against 642 leads at Middlewich and 1,296 leads at Nantwich, but the comparative superiority of the brine pumped at Nantwich over that of her rivals is demonstrated by the relative amount of boiling required to precipitate the salt. In Northwich, the annual expenditure for wood fuel was £2,056; Middlewich, with nearly one-third more leads, consumed wood fuel to the amount of £1,435 yearly; while Nantwich, working twice as many leads as Middlewich, and nearly three times the number operated at Northwich, had an annual wood bill of only £1,728.

In 1670, Winsford, which had only just started as a salt producer, had two salt works in operation on a small scale. In 1675, Lord Brereton ignored the output of Winsford in his calculation of the total annual salt production of the Cheshire works at 26,927 tons. In 1878, or practically two centuries later, the Cheshire output of salt was calculated at 2,055,000 tons, made up as follows: Winsford and District, 1,036,000 tons; Northwich and District, 880,000 tons; Middlewich and District, 21,000 tons; and the newly-developed Sandbach District, 118,000 tons. But while Winsford has surpassed her older competitors in the matter of salt production, Northwich is still the commercial centre of the industry and the greatest producer of brine; whereas, in the case of the other districts, the brine is converted into salt on the spot, the Northwich brine, to the amount of hundreds of millions of gallons annually, is pumped out of the neighbourhood through the Marbury pipe, to be employed in the chemical works of Brunner, Mond & Co., and be manufactured into salt at the Salt Union’s works at Weston Point.

Compared with the other salt-making centres, the record of Middlewich is of slight importance, and although the ancient town boasts an honourable place in the history of the Cheshire Wiches, it now takes a secondary position among the salt-producing districts.

Lawton, in the south-eastern corner of the Cheshire salt region, is a comparatively modern entrant into the local industry, for although the place is of historic importance as the scene of the discovery of the bottom bed of salt in 1779, white salt has only been manufactured there for something over 130 years. The deposits, which are found at a considerable height above sea-level, are of great but undefined magnitude, as the lowest strata has been bored through for a thickness of 72 feet, without penetrating the formation. The rock salt here was acknowledged to be purer than any previously encountered in Cheshire, and the brine derived therefrom, containing 26·100 chloride sodium by weight, yields on evaporation an exceptionally high class of white salt. The Commercial Salt Company, Ltd., which was formed to work the Hodgkinson Patent Salt-making Process, to which further reference must be made later, have their works at Lawton, where they are most conveniently situated in the important matters of transport and fuel, being on the canal which brings them nearer to the markets of the Midland Counties than any other salt works in the country, and obtaining their coal from workings within two miles of the property. The rock salt formation is so vast that the supply of brine, if not actually inexhaustible, will allow of an enormous production of salt for many generations to come. The output of white salt at Lawton for nearly a century and a half has not appreciably depleted the deposits and is not at present being drawn upon, as the Commercial Salt Company are pumping from an excellent “brine run” which is pumped without the damage to property and subsidence of land that have occurred in other parts of the Cheshire salt districts.

The chronicle of the salt industry of Winsford is one of the romances of commerce. Until the river Weaver was made navigable, the Winsford salt manufacture was limited to the output of only four pans of unrecorded dimensions, which were probably worked by Middlewich makers. In 1758, the first year in which the Winsford shippings were recorded separately, the export of white salt was 1,055 tons. By the end of the century, Winsford sent 44,384 tons down the river Weaver, and, in the year 1850, their shipments had increased to 324,249 tons. This output had risen in 1880 to 794,824 tons of white salt. In the ensuing ten years there was a slight increase, followed by a sharp decline (in 1890) to 501,548 tons, or a fall from the high-water mark of 834,306 tons in 1881, of no less than 332,758 tons. The decline in the Winsford make of salt was not arrested by the formation of the Salt Union in 1888, and ten years later the output of white salt had decreased to 403,455 tons, and the export of rock-salt from Winsford, which had recommenced with an output of 141 tons in 1856 and risen to 28,236 tons in 1886, ceased in 1898.