saltcote 2013 01

About Saltcotes

The newsletter of Ecosal-UK and the UK Salt Network

A ‘saltcote’ (in various spellings) wasthe small boiling hut used in thesleeching process and perhaps in otherMedieval saltmaking methods. Itcontained a hearth fuelled with eitherpeat or wood, depending on which fuelwas locally available, heating smalllead pans.

As reconstructed in Lincolnshire (theonly area in which remains have beenexcavated, and then under 1960s‘rescue’ conditions), the saltcotebuilding was a timber-framed andthatch-rooofed building, typicallylocated on top of a sleeching mound toraise it above storm and very high tide levels – the building materials like the fuelprobably varied from area to area.

Saltcote place-names occur on the East Coast from Lincolnshire to Bo’ness, nearGrangemouth on the south side of the Firth of Forth, and on the West Coast from theRibble estuary in Lancashire to Caerlaverock in Dumfriesshire with an outlier atSaltcoats in North Ayrshire. The word is of Anglo-Saxon origin, and its occurrencein areas such as Lincolnshire (where many other place-names are of Danish Vikingorigin), and Cumbria (where names are a complex mix of Anglian, British, Norse,and Scando-Norman) suggests that it originated in pre-Viking times. In fact thedistribution of ‘saltcote’ place-names corresponds uncannily well to the maximumextent of Northumbrian control in the seventh to eighth centuries, suggesting that itwas a specifically Northumbrian term and may even link to Northumbrian ‘multipleestates’.

Most ‘saltcote’ royal place-names occur beside salt marshes or on reclaimed formersalt marsh areas, often with field or historical evidence for sleeching (the exceptionbeing Saltcoats in Ayrshire, a location more suitable for ‘direct boiling’ than any ofthe pre-concentration processes). In Lincolnshire, where mound sleeching wasdominant, it is thought that every saltworks had its own saltcote, but in other areasthis may not be the case; on the Holm Cultram marshes in Cumbria every tenantedholding with a shoreline on the Cistercian monastic estate and its lay-ownedsuccessor paid rent in salt, but there is only one ‘Saltcotes’ place name locatedbeside an interesting former extension of the unenclosed marshland on higher non-tidal land, and it is possible that the tenants produced concentrated brine on theirown strips of marshland, and took the brine for boiling onto a single boiling area,under the direct control of the monastic and later landlords.

Like many aspects of British saltmaking there is much that we do not yet understandabout saltcotes, and there are many fruitful avenues of research to be undertaken –that makes it a very suitable title for our newsletter!

SaltcoteNo.1 September - 2013

Saltcote: a place where salt was made and stored.

ECOSAL-UKA Salt Network for the UK

ECOSAL-UK will encourage an activemembership to contribute to the objectives ofa better understanding and interpretation oftraditional salt making and its culturalassociations in the UK for research,education, interpretation, tourism andinternational co-operation.

ECOSAL-UK will act as an advisor, advocateand first point of contact for enquiries into thehistory of traditional salt making in the UK.

See page 8 for details of the Salt Network andhow to join.

David Cranstone

Registered logo for sites eligible to belong to the AtlanticRoute of Traditional Salt Making created by the Ecosal-Atlantic project, which links salt sites on the Atlanticcoasts of Portugal, Spain, France and the UK.

Keep in Touch with Ecosal-UKwww.ecosal-uk.org.uk

www.facebook.com/ecosaluk

www.ecosaluk.blogspot.co.uk

Twitter@ecosal_uk

See how a French museum in the Atlantic Route ofTraditional Salt Making demonstrates salt making

in a ‘saltcote’ building - See page 9

Image of a saltcote at Marshchapel, Lincolnshirefrom The Book of the Lincolnshire Seaside by D.N.Robinson (Barracuda Books). Reproduced bypermission.

The Salt Network of Ecosal-UK

Saltcote - the newsletter of Ecosal UK No. 1 September 2013

Ecosal-Atlantis and theOrigins of Ecosal-UKMark BrisbaneIn early 2010 an EU project into variousaspects of saltworking with partners fromthe UK, France, Spain and Portugal wonsupport from INTERREG and was fundedthrough the ERDF. The full title of theproject was “Ecotourism in saltworks of theAtlantic: a strategy for integral andsustainable development”, abbreviated toECOSAL-Atlantis. Its aim was thedevelopment of joint, integral andsustainable tourism based on the culturaland natural heritage of traditional Atlanticsaltworking sites. The three-year project(2010-2013) focused on key activitiesdesigned to develop tourism in Atlanticsaltworking sites, namely Heritage,Territorial Development, Bio-diversity andEco-Tourism. These activities correspondedto the four main objectives of the project:

● To establish guidelines for themanagement of the natural andcultural heritage of saltworkingsites on the basis of a commonheritage database.

● To evaluate, enhance the value ofand promote traditional Atlanticsaltworking sites by means of anetwork of players implementingjoint actions.

● To maintain or restore the habitatstypical of saltworking sites throughthe use of best practice in eco-tourism, taking into account thefragility of the resource and theneed for sustainability.

● To promote the conservation andunderstanding of Atlantic saltworking sites by circulatinginformation and creatingtransnational synergies, includingthe creation of an international saltroute.

As well as addressing these objectives, theproject produced over a dozen newsletters,two websites (one based at AveiroUniversity, Portugal and the other atBournemouth University), databases onformer and current salt working sitesincluding inventories of museum collectionswith salt-related material, museum tool-boxes for those sites wishing to use it tohelp explain salt production for educationalvisits, a concept and logo for a heritage trailcalled ‘Traditional Saltworking: TheAtlantic Route’, a book on the salt sitesincluded on that route, and papers on theecological characteristics of salinas, saltlagoons and marshes associated with currentor former salt works.

The PartnersDiputación Foral de Álava (Lead Partner),SpainBournemouth University, UKEcomusee du Marais Salant, FranceCentre National de la RechercheScientifique, University of Nantes, FranceCommunauté de communes Océan-Maraisde Monts, FranceCommunaute de communes de l'iled'Oléron, FranceCap Atlantique, FranceAsociación Cultural de Amigos de lasSalinas de Interior, SpainFundación Espacios Naturales Protegidos deAndalucía (ANDANATURA), SpainUniversidade de Aveiro, PortugalCâmara Municipal de Aveiro, PortugalCâmara Municipal de Rio Maior, PortugalCâmara Municipal da Figueira da Foz,Portugal

The UK position within theProjectThe focus of the project was to create alinked heritage and ecology-based trail onthe basis of knowledge of traditional saltworking sites. For our Portuguese, Spanishand French partners this meant linking agroup of sites, which they had alreadyidentified through an earlier project, torecord them, to improve their touristfacilities and to link them in a trail with anidentity, promoting each other, increasingvisitor numbers, and disseminatinginformation (via newsletters, website,conferences and seminars, etc).

The UK situation was markedly different forthe following reasons:1. Unlike our continental partners who had

worked together in a previous project,we did not already have a databaseother than those created by individualsor by organisations (e.g. in countyHERs, EH records, etc). Therefore oneof our main goals was to carry out arapid extensive survey to create adatabase of former salt working siteswithin the study area.

2. Unlike our continental partners, we donot have any traditional salt workingsites still functioning (i.e. producing saltin a traditional way). Some current saltproducing areas (e.g. Maldon in Essex)are not within the study area of theproject (we were only looking atAtlantic coast sites and that is strictly

defined by INTERREG as Dorset west,then up the west coast as far as northernScotland, plus Northern Ireland). Thisruled out some interesting sites/areassuch as Kent, Essex, Lincs, etc.

3. We are also different because our saltproduction used different techniquesfrom the salinas. Solar (or moreaccurately partial solar) evaporationwas used much less here, except in afew places along the south coast such asLymington. Hence the techniques wewere interested in were very different,and included sleeching, boiling, use ofpanhouses, etc.

4. We are also different in that we wantedto consider a longer chronologicalframework than our partners (i.e.prehistoric, Roman, post-Roman, earlymedieval, medieval and post-medieval).This is not to say that our partners werenot interested in earlier remains of saltworking (e.g. Roman), but they weremuch more concerned with recordingthreatened, shrinking or recently ceasedproduction sites (i.e. largely stillfunctioning in some capacity into the20th and even into the 21st century).

The UK DatabaseThe UK database was completed inDecember 2012 and contains 679 sitesranging in date from Bronze Age to PostMedieval. This database will be madeavailable to Ecosal-UK.

The project in the UK was managed fromBournemouth University by Mark Brisbanewith assistance on the archaeology andheritage from David Cranstone and Andrewand Annelise Fielding with fieldworkconducted by Michael Fradley. The ecologywas led by Roger Herbert with assistancefrom Artoo Marine Biological Consultants.

For further details see:http://www.bournemouth.ac.uk/applied-sciences/research/ecosal-atlantis/uk-project.htmlhttp://www.ecosal-atlantis.ua.pt/

Roger Herbert, Andrew Fielding, Mark Brisbane andDavid Cranstone at the Ecosal-Atlantis Conference,Vitoria, Spain Nov 2012.f

Lagoon Ecology andBio-diversity of SalinasRoger Herbert

The major legacy of British coastal saltworking on bio-diversity is within theremains of the salterns of southernEngland, notably at Lymington inHampshire and at Newtown on the Isle ofWight.

At Lymington, many of the evaporatingbasins of former salterns have now beenre-landscaped to form larger ‘brackishlagoons’, which are a highly specialisedhabitat and are rare both in AtlanticEurope and in the UK. These shelteredaquatic habitats are colonised by anassemblage of invertebrate species that are particularly tolerant of a wide range of salinitythat is distinct from estuarine and other marine ecosystems. Species include ragwormsand various small crustaceans and specialists including the lagoon cockle (Cerastodermaglaucum), lagoon sand shrimp (Gammarus insensibilis) and the spectacular starlet seaanemone (Nematostella vectensis), which can be found at very high densities within someof the lagoons. In the UK, some of these invertebrate species are protected for a variety ofreasons; they have a restricted habitat and distribution, they represent northern-edgepopulations of southern species (e.g. Gammarus insensibilis); they are both uncommonand are attractive ‘flagship’ species for lagoons (e.g. starlet sea anemone Nematostellavectensis).

Although now extinct from Lymington, the brine tanks and possibly the evaporatingbasins of the salterns were once a home for the brine shrimp or ‘sea monkey’ Artemiasalina which is still characteristic of the fauna of evaporating basins and crystallisationponds of active salinas in southern Europe. Although invertebrate species diversity isgenerally low in these habitats, high densities and biomass provide important preyresources for over wintering migratory birds, such as black-tailed godwits avocets andbreeding birds such as terns and avocets.

Notwithstanding differences in latitude, conservation objectives for the protection of birdpopulations within saline lagoon sites in the UK are often shared with similar habitats insouthern Europe. Storage reservoirs of active salt working sites in southern Europe are inmany ways very similar habitats to our saline lagoons and therefore aspects of bio-diversity conservation management in the UK are likely to be applicable to reservoirs ofsalt-working sites in southern Europe.

To ensure conservation objectives are met, the main practical measures that are applied tothese sites will include:

- regulation of water depth to create bird breeding islands, yet ensuring that itdoes not rise to the extent that the wading birds are prevented from feeding;

- regulation of water salinity to maintain high invertebrate diversity andbiomass;

- management of predators to enhance bird breeding success;

- creation of new wetland habitats to encourage priority species.

With an increasing range of coastal ecological disturbances the conservation of thesehabitats and associated species will remain a challenge. Yet we can learn much from theecology of these sites to help mitigate these impacts on the wider coastal and marineenvironment, including the construction of new lagoons to mitigate the impact ofpredicted sea level rise.

Lagoons andBio-diversity

Recommendations from the Ecosal-Atlantis project

● actively managed sites, where there iswater exchange and depthmanagement, are more productiveand diverse;

● maintaining higher water salinityincreases invertebrate abundance,diversity and potential prey biomassfor winter birds;

● a wide range of breeding bird predatormanagement options at a site appearsessential to meet conservationobjectives;


Saltcote - the newsletter of Ecosal UK No. 1 September 2013

Newtown, Isle of Wight

Salthouse. Lymington, Hampshire

Brine shrimps brought to the attention of thescientific community were specimens fromLymington, Hampshire. They were drawn in 1756by Schosser and classified by the great taxonomistCarl Linnaeus in 1758.Brine shrimp image © Hans Hillewaert / CC-BY-SA-3.0

Salt Making Sites

What can Ecosal UK hope to do toenable salt studies to be movedforward in a positive and responsibleway?

● Create a network of experiencedindividuals who will share theirexperiences and offer advice.

● Create a full on-line saltbibliography which takes in all thesalt related and fringe-saltpublications with mini-reviewswhere possible.

● Establish an annual conferencewhich aims to further knowledgein the subject.

Of the many thousands of saltmaking sites known around Britain’s coast few have beenexcavated. Of those that have many of the investigations have been relatively small-scale.In only a handful of instances have the wider landscapes associated with the hearths andovens used for evaporation been exposed.

In British archaeology targeted government-funded research is a thing of the past. Instead,excavations are conducted only in advance of construction and then funded by thedeveloper. This works against the furtherance of the study of salterns in a number ofways. Firstly, the coastal salterns are in rural locations and relatively rarely ‘threatened’by large-scale development (although agricultural and coastal erosion continues). Whilethe lack of a direct threat of development may be positive on one hand, in that sites are toan extent ‘preserved’, in other respects it means that the study of the subject is not beingfurthered. Moreover, when excavations are required, the funding body – the Developer –will almost always opt for the cheapest price. Those with the knowledge of the sitesinevitably price the job according to the known constraints in excavating this type of siteand do not necessarily win the work (this problem is not specific to salterns and otherspecialist sites are equally affected).

Refreshingly, during the recent excavations of an Iron Age and Roman saltern at LondonGateway site in the Thames Estuary, Oxford Archaeology invited a number ofpractitioners with saltern experience to view the site and comment on the way it wasbeing excavated and, what additional features to expect and suggested interpretations ofwhat had been found. This was a commendable and rare occurrence and such sharing ofknowledge is a way that Ecosal UK could help to move forward the art and interpretationof saltern excavations. We could create a network of experienced salt excavators and/orbriquetage specialists who could be contacted with queries. We understand that someindividuals may be working as consultants and that there may be some commercialpressures that might get in the way but the principle is that we would like to help eachother where possible for the furtherance of the study of saltmaking.

With the coastal saltmaking sites a host ofproblems can present themselves.To begin with the sites are in formermarshland environments, many of whichhave seen subsequent flooding episodes andother environmental changes depositingalluvial cover and creating temporary landsurfaces. These can be hard to tease out.

For the pre-medieval sites the density andfragmentation of the briquetage present at thesites can be a problem. It is a form ofindustrial waste but one that is vital to theunderstanding of the on-site processes.Therefore, it needs collecting and expert analysis. Seldom are such costs adequatelycatered for in commercial archaeology. Being industrial sites there is always a lot of re-deposition, the moving around of large amounts of hearth waste etc. Despite the leapsforward in briquetage typologies undertaken by Elaine Morris and others the dating ofsites is not easy and many have no associated domestic material to aid chronology.Archaeo-magnetic dating of the hearth features should be considered where possible.

Anyway the message is clear – these salterns are important sites and when excavatedshould be treated respectfully and with a sense of enquiry - treasured not trashed.


Saltcote - the newsletter of Ecosal-UK No. 1 September 2013

Excavating Salterns:Problems andOpportunitiesTom Lane

Descriptions of Salt Making and

Landscape in LincolnshireDamian M. Grady, Medieval and Post-medieval Salt

Extraction in North-East Lincolnshire

in Lincolnshire’s Archaeology from the Air. Occasional

papers in Lincolnshire History and Archaeology. Ed.

Robert H. Bewley. No.11 (1984) p 81-95

Teresa Maybury. A Century of Change on the Lindsey

Marshland: Marshchapel 1540-1640. PhD thesis 2011

https://hydra.hull.ac.uk/catalog/hull:4448

Helen Fenwick, The Lincolnshire Marsh: Landscape

Evolution, Settlement Development and the Salt

Industry. PhD Thesis 2007

http://core.kmi.open.ac.uk/display/8780034

Tom Lane and Elaine Morris A Millennium of

Saltmaking: Prehistoric and Romano-British Salt

Production in the Fenland. Linconshire Archaeology

and Heritage Reports 4 (2001) 509pp

Article in the Next Issue of Saltcote

'Locating the Medieval Coastal Salt Industry in

Lincolnshire Using Lidar' by Dr Steve Malone

Replica salt pans based on examplesexcavated at Langtoft, Lincolnshire.

Excavations at Spalding, Lincolnshire.

Saltscapes and Ecology

Potential work

● Ecosal UK looks forward to beingable to put together a project tointerpret the heritage of saltmaking across all the UK’s Areasof Outstanding Natural Beauty -AONBs. There has been apositive response from nineAONBs to use salt as aninterpretation theme within theirareas.

● Our salt marshes are a haven forwildlife, birds and plants. Ecosalwould like to work closely with themanagers of salt marshes touncover lost elements of saltheritage.

● Not all the evidence is in theground. There is great potential touncover details of landmanagement from documentarysources stored in our local andnational archives.

● Utilising the heritage of salt acrossall the areas can add value to alocal economy, not just throughtourism but through locallydistinctive food products such assalt marsh grazed lamb, salt beefand salt fish.

In the western coastal area of Northern England and in Southern Scotland, where saltmarsh occurs, a historic salt making culture is still evident on the ground. Salt was wonfrom seawater beginning in the medieval period introduced by the Cistercian order ofmonks. The Cistercians were no strangers to salt making, in other parts of Europe suchas Western France their estates all had salterns. However, the colder climate must havelimited their production in more northerly latitudes.

Trade and economic prosperity was the driver when land was given by the crown to thevarious orders of monks but the Cistercians were the undisputed leaders in salt making.Their salt was used mainly for preserving fish, game and mutton so that it could bepreserved and traded across large areas thus bringing in wealth and exotic commoditiessuch as wine.

Salt winning leaves its archaeological footprint on the ground in the form of depressions,channels and mounds on salt marshes and these can be difficult to interpret in terms oftheir overall form and function, but what is clear is the difference between man madepools and channels as opposed to those that occur naturally. For example salt marshessurrounding the Solway Firth on the Scotland and England border are rich in these sites,which were probably abandoned shortly after the dissolution of the monasteries in 1538.

The sites were left to natural processes and were quickly overgrown by salt loving plants(Halophytes). This formed hyper-saline lagoons where brine shrimp and otherinvertebrates prospered setting up micro-habitats which provided feeding and breedingareas for birds such as waders and many species of ducks.

These areas have had almost 500 years to evolve as wildlife habitats and subsequentsedimentation and vegetation changes, due to the reducing influence of salt, hasprovided for a wealth of different wildlife to prosper.

Today the evidence has almost been wiped off the landscape with the landscapesmoothing effect of time and erosion. But what is left is a rich tapestry of habitat typeswhich are special and species rich and provide interest and pleasure to the thousands ofvisitors to these areas.

This legacy of salt production by the Cistercian monks is hidden by time, but the wildlifeand landscape has prospered with visitors being largely unaware of the driving forcebehind what they see before them.

This unique heritage of salt production needs public exposure and interpretation toarticulate its importance both historically and in the present day.



Salt SitesLandscape andEcologyBrian Irving MBE

The heritage of salt in Cumbria includes the

Cistercian landscape around Hulme Cultrum

Abbey, the salt works complex and the tomb of

John Smith a Salt Officer at Crosscanonby, salt

marsh and wildlife at the RSPB reserve at

Campfield Marsh and salt making associated

with William Brownrigg at Whitehaven.

.www.solwaycoastaonb.org.uk/saltpans.php

Salt marsh reared lambs.

Left: Interpretation boards at Campfield MarshRSPB Reserve on the Solway Coast.

Many of our members may be new to the processes of traditional salt making, so, apologiesto those who already have an advanced knowledge. Over the coming years Ecosal-UK willlook to advance our understanding of all the different methods of salt making that havetaken place in the UK

Brine can come from two sources: sea water or inland brine. Ultimately a saturated brine isevaporated to drive off water and crystallise the salt but how people have created thesaturated brine has changed and evolved between different periods of our history and indifferent locations. Some processes evolved independently, others have been adopted, oradapted, from others through an exchange of ideas and experimentation.

First collect your brine. Methods of collecting sea water for salt making have varieddepending on different factors such as whether the source is from an estuary, a salt marsh, asandy foreshores or rocky coasts and whether the sea water was to be pre-concentrated orboiled directly.

In inland areas where rock salt deposits lie close enough to the surface, rain water canpercolate through the ground dissolving the rock salt, at a ‘wet rock head’ which can rununderground producing stronger brine in a ‘brine stream’ to re-appear on the surface asbrine springs. The earliest areas of inland salt production are in Cheshire and at Droitwich.

Two processes use the term ‘salt pan’. In salinas, salt pans may refer to large, shallow,man-made open ponds used to collect sea water for solar evaporation. Each pond may havea different name, identifying and separating out the basins used to collect the sea waterfrom the concentrating ponds and the crystallisation pans. In this process the sun and windevaporate the sea water until it is concentrated enough for salt to crystallise.

An ‘open pan process’ uses of a fire to heat brine in man-made containers where the seawater, or inland brine, may be either boiled directly from weak brine or be concentratedfirst. This chiefly depends of the availability and price of fuel.

There are four traditional methods of salt production:1. Solar Evaporation uses the sun and wind to evaporate water from sea water to

crystallise the salt without the use of artificial heat. Process used in the salinas ofFrance, Spain and Portugal.

2. Direct Boiling uses of fuel to heat brine in open pans directly from the sea, orbrine spring, without first concentrating it.

3. Pre-concentration of brine may use various methods of concentrating seawaterbefore boiling, thus saving on fuel. A 'partial solar' process used sun and wind inopen ponds before using a fuel to heat the brine and crystallise the salt; 'sleeching',‘muldefang’ or sand-washing’ techniques collect salt-enriched crusts on tidal siltsor sands to create a strong brine ready for heating in pans over a fire.

4. A ‘salt-on-salt’ process or ‘salt refining’ was a process of adding dirty salt, orrock salt, to weak brine or sea water to bring it to saturation levels that can be re-crystallised to make salt by the open pan process.



Salt MakingUK ProcessesAndrew Fielding

Top to Bottom:An open pan salt works, Northwich, Cheshire.William Jackson’s illustration of Droitwich saltmaking in 1669.Excavations at Brora, Sutherland, Scotland.Trebarveth, Cornwall.Port Eynon, Gower, Wales.

DIFFERENT TYPES OF SALTEcosal-UK will seek to inform and educate

about all the different types of salt

available.

Is there a difference?

Would anyone like a tasting session?

Our history of salt making has become lost, but is as fundamental to our industrial past andcultural heritage as the more well-known industrial processes and historic sites. So, theconcept of using the Ecosal-Atlantis project as a catalyst for joining together all thedisparate sites in the UK under one theme was an attractive one.

No traditional salt making sites still operate on the Atlantic coast of the UK and this sets usapart from the partner sites in the Ecosal-Atlantis project. The oldest artisan salt makers inthe UK, at Maldon in Essex, still use a form of open pan which would have been understoodby our Roman saltmaking ancestors but were outside our operating area of the Atlanticcoast. But we were able to include the newer producers in Cornwall and on Angleseywhose inspiration for their quality salt crystals has been drawn from the heritage of ourarchaeological and historical salt making past. And, as with our continental partners, thepresent day evidence of traditional salt making skills is available direct from thoseproducers, their retailers for us to use and enjoy in our kitchens and on the food we cook.

In 2011 and 2012 the UK team from the Ecosal-Atlantis project travelled around thecountry visiting and speaking to as many sites, museums, organisations and individuals whowere identified as having an interest in, knowledge of or experience in traditional, historicor artisan salt making. The project was also interested in using salt as a theme for eco-tourism, bio-diversity and sustainable economic development, so our the definition of oursalty past includes cultural associations such as salt glazed pottery, salt marshes, birds,plants, food and cooking, farming, transport, buildings, historical figures and literature -pretty much anything that tells the story of salt from our prehistoric past to recent times.

Salt making demonstrations were given at the Middlewich Roman Event in Cheshire,Anderby Creek and Saltfleetby , Lincolnshire supporting NKArts and the LincolnshireMarshes Grazing Project and as part of Newlyn Art Gallery’s Museums at Night event inCornwall. These events and other site visits were recorded and published in Youtube andreported back to our EU partners in Portugal, Spain and France.

Over the three years we were able to provide heritage information to the Anglesey Sea SaltCompany about salt making in Wales for grant applications and support HeritageMiddlewich in their applications for HLF funding to preserve and conserve an electric brinepump, formerly part of the Murgatroyds Salt Works. We see the special knowledge thatEcosal-UK can provide to help preserve our salt heritage as being an important role for thefuture.

Landscape and bio-diversity connections will be an important element in linking the historyof salt making to the present day and the project has received enthusiastic support from theAreas of Outstanding Beauty, AONBs, where many of our former sea salt making sites arelocated.

To determine how we should take forward the legacy of the Ecosal-Atlantis project we setup consultation meetings in 2013 at venues in Cheshire, Anglesey, Cornwall, Bournemouth,Cumbria and Lincolnshire. The of story of salt making is still only a very small part ofmany sites and it was thought that few would consider it to be a main part of their dailywork load - but many would be supportive of the additional benefit a united and focusedorganisation could give to such a diverse story. It was therefore decided to create a not-for-profit company that could co-ordinate the story of salt and represent it at home and abroad,taking an active lead by forming a UK Salt Network to encourage participation, research,interpretation and the communication of best practices for the benefit of all.

Following help and advice from Business in the Arts NW and Jonathan Gillow, solicitor atHill Dickson LLP, Manchester, Ecosal-UK was incorporated on 15 August. We hope that itis able to lead and support all active participants in the field of traditional saltmaking and itsassociated culture.



Setting upEcosal-UKAndrew Fielding

Ecosal meetingBournemouth University, June 2013.

Ecosal meetingAnglesey Sea Salt Company, June 2013.

Ecosal meeting Helston Museum, Cornwall, June 2013.

Ecosal meetingMiddlewich, June 2013.

Middlewich, Cheshire

Ecosal meetingSolway Coast AONB, Nov 2012.

Salt ProducersSupport Ecosal-UK

The Anglesey Sea Salt Company andthe Cornish Sea Salt Company supportthe setting up of Ecosal-UK for thecoordination, study, research andpromotion of our salt making heritage.As well as the organisation andpromotion of our long history of saltmaking with the partners in Spain,France and Portugal, especially thoseinvolved in The Atlantic Route ofTraditional Salt Making.

Our salt-making story goes back to the Bronze Age and continuestoday in a modern form at sea salt works in Cornwall, Essex and onAnglesey. Elements of the earlier story can still be found scatteredalong the UK’s 19,491 miles (31,368 km) of coastline – if youknow where to look. That’s a lot of history and a lot of coastline forpeople to discover, not counting our inland salt producing counties.

So why isn’t our salt history better known? Essentially the story hasnever really been pulled together to make it understandable. Thereare big distances between sites that make following a trail difficult,and at many sites the surviving remains are hard to see and manyhave no interpretive display panels. Some have been destroyed bylater harbour developments or coastal erosion and so the greaterindustrial archaeology stories of mining or slate working, castles orstately homes have been given greater attention in local historiesand by tourist literature.

The salt industry was unusually diverse as producers founddifferent solutions to the common problem of evaporating weakbrine in the cool and rainy weather of the Atlantic coast of Britain.All these factors help to provide a fascinating narrative founded onmany themes that will interest a wide variety of people.

What Ecosal-UK aims to do is to create a sustainable link betweenall of our historic salt-making sites by working with people andorganisations that can make more of their own sites by becomingpart of a coordinated network, enabling each to put their own localstory or site into a national and international context.

In addition, we are seeking to incorporate cultural aspects of oursalt heritage that can help develop the local economy while addingto the sustainability of the whole project. We want the network tohighlight aspects of regional food products, such as salt marshgrazed lamb, salt beef and fish, preserves and pickles and link thisto restaurants that serve local dishes and recipes as well ashighlighting distinctive potters, who fire stoneware clays at hightemperatures and turn salt into a unique salt glaze.

The starting point for Ecosal-Atlantis was to create a network ofsites that linked sites of traditional salt making along the Atlanticcoast. Ecosal-UK proposes to also link sites in the UK that are lo-cated on the North Sea Coast and the Channel coast and eventuallyextend our partnerships and collaboration to include Denmark, Hol-land, Germany and northern France.

For those sites that qualify to belong to the ‘Atlantic Route’ we pro-posed that the UK Route will be divided into six regions and thatthere should be a lead site within each region could act as feedersites to other salt-making interests in their region.

The basics of Ecosal-UK has been put together, but itsdevelopment and success will depend ultimately on how individualsand sites with a connection or interest in salt will work with us,individually, jointly, locally and regionally across the UK and howwe exchange information and practices with our colleaguesoverseas. Our salt story is only just beginning.


Saltcote - the newsletter of Ecosal-UK No. 1 August 2013

Ecosal-UKUK LinksAndrew Fielding

CAN YOU IDENTIFY ALL THESE PLACES AND THEIRSALT HERITAGE LINKS?

Ecomusée de la Baie duMont-Saint-MichelRoute du Grouin du Sud50300 Vains / Saint-Lé[email protected]él : 02 33 89 06 06Fax : 02 33 89 06 07http://patrimoine.manche.fr/ecomusee-N.asp#.UhnYlCqF_AY



Ecosal-UK EU Links : The Atlantic RouteEcomusée de la Baie du Mont-Saint-MichelAndrew Fielding

In the UK we do not fully understand how our process of sleeching or sand-washing of salt took place. But, in France the Ecomusée de la Baie du Mont-Saint-Michel provides a practical demonstrations about how it was done there.

Jean-Yves Cocaign, director of the Living Museum of the Bay of Mont-Saint-Michel describesthe exploitation of salt from the sands at Vains, Saint-Léonard overlooked by Mont Saint Michelnear Avranches, Normandy, France.During the summer sunshine, sea water trapped in the sand at high spring tides evaporates toform a salty film where the fine sand known as sablon is heavily loaded with salt. The sablon isharvested during the neap tides by le saunier on the portion of grève he operates.Using a haveau he scrapes the grève, first parallel then perpendicular to the shore and smallmounds of sand are made called monceaux. The monceaux are loaded onto carts and taken to thebuilding of the saline.On mondrins, the aireux were dug, and are gradually filled with the fine sand and largecylindrical mounds rise above the aireu, as mouées.The mouées are covered with a clay cap and topped with fagots to protect them from the rain.The exploitation of the mouées is during the autumn and winter.The fine sand is stored near the salt house where it is washed in the fosse with clean water fromthe well. Brine, filtered from the fosse is collected in drums inside the saline and this is called labrune. La brune is evaporated in rectangular pans. After an hour and a half, salt begins to crystal-lize. The wet salt is drained in marvaux and dried before being packed into sacks.

Sablon : fine sand loaded with saltGrève : the foreshore where salt crystals are held in the fine sandSaline : the area where sand washed salt is evaporated to make white saltHaveau:: a large flat rake used to havelageHavelage : scraping the surface of the grève to harvest the sablon.Monceaux : small piles of fine sands on the beachesAireu : a pit dug into the mondrin to make a mouéeMouée : lots of fine sand stored for the period of operation. Covered with clay and

protected by fagots, the mouée will operate during the winterSaunier : salt workerMarvaux : conical wicker basketsFosse : large square box packed with sablon to drain out la bruneLa Brune : brown brine drained from the fosse and taken into the salt house to be evapo-

rated.Mondrin : fine sand accumulation from the activity of salt making

This process for making salt provided a white salt considered to be better than Breton grey salt,for example, but was much more expensive in the refining process.It costs, notably related to the significant demand for wood, partly explains the disappearance ofthis activity in the first half of the nineteenth century.

Preserving the History and Heritage of Traditional Salt Making

and its Associated Culture

in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland

Other NewslettersEl Alfolí

El Alfolí is published twice a year by the former SpanishAsociacion de Amigos de las Salinas de Interior - The CulturalAssociation of Friends of Inland Salinas, now IPAISAL -Instituto del Patrimonio y los Paisajes de la Sal - The Institutefor Salt Heritage and Landscapes. The Institute is coordinatedby Katia Hueso Kortekaas and Jesus-F. Carrasco Vaya, bothof whom participated in the Ecosal-Atlantis project.http://www.ipaisal.org/Issue number 13 of El Alfolí was published in August 2013.

DIARYMembers can advertise their events here. Please join Ecosal-UK andlet is know about your salt themed events. We will also publicisethem through our Blog and Facebook sites.To get started these are some of the events we know of so far.

2013

11 - 15 SeptemberWinsford Salt Festival, Cheshire12 SeptemberTalk: Colin EdmondsonA Look at the History of the River Weaver and the Salt Works fromWinsford to Newbridge. Free. 19.3015 SeptemberWalk: Colin EdmondsonA Guided Walk from the Red Lion, Winsford to the Site of the OldNational Salt Works. Looking at the History of the River and the SaltWorks along its Banks. Free. 10.30

14-15 SeptemberDroitwich Spa Salt FestVarious town locationsJanet Yates 01386 [email protected] Arts Network Salt FestivalPeter Hawkins [email protected]

22 SeptemberWeaver Hall Museum, London Road, NorthwichTalk Anthony BrandrethThe Forthcoming Saltscape Project.

10-13 OctoberMiddewich Salt EventTalk: Ian Miller, Senior Manager, Oxford Archaeology North.Salt Production in Salinae: Latest Excavations in Roman Middlewich.Tour: See Modern Day Salt Making at British [email protected]

18 OctoberTraditional Salt Making - the Atlantic RouteMeeting at Batz-sur-mer, FranceThe first meeting of members of the Atlantic Salt Route.www.ecosal-atlantis.ua.pt

16- 18 DecemberTAG-on-Sea : The Theoretical Archaeology Group35th Annual ConferenceThe Archaeology Group, School of Applied SciencesBournemouth UniversitySession being organised on traditional salt making.https://microsites.bournemouth.ac.uk/tag2013/welcome/http://www.facebook.com/TAGOnSea2013

2014Monday 3 February, 2014Frodsham and District History SocietyMain Street Community Church, Frodsham, CheshireTalk: Andrew FieldingThe History of Traditional Salt Making in the United Kingdom

5-11 September, 2014Annual Conference : The Association for Industrial ArchaeologyChester UniversityA week long conference looking at industrial sites in the area,evening talks and day excursions.9 SeptemberTalk: Andrew Fielding : The Cheshire and Merseyside Salt MakingSites Represented by Ecosal-UK and their place in the AtlanticRoute of Traditional Salt Making.10 SeptemberTour J: The Salt Landscape of Cheshirewww.industrial-archaeology.org

About Ecosal-UKEcosal-UK is a not for profit company

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Saltcote is edited by Andrew FieldingThe editor does not necessarily endorse the opinions of the contributors

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JOINTHE UK SALT NETWORK

Please visit our web site or email for details abouthow to subscribe to the UK Salt Network.We have rates for individuals and corporatememberships which will give you opportunities totake part in our activities at reduced ratesincluding:

● an annual conference to hear about researchinto all aspects of our salt heritage

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● twice yearly newsletter● local Salt Network groups● notification of news, events and activities

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