Salt

Inspired again by Ann Lingard’s book * we decided to take a chance on the weather and head back to the Solway. We weren’t really looking for anything new, as Gordon has been exploring this area all his life, but we were now beginning to put things more into a context.

Salt
Before the invention of refrigeration, meat and fish were preserved using salt. Vast quantities were required in Anglo Saxon times, when salt extraction was the third biggest industry after farming and fishing. One of the most important things the priories and abbeys along the Border area were given was the right to build salt-pans and the right to get peat to fuel the pans. It was thus the Church that was to establish the Cumbrian salt industry, which was to work more or less continuously for 700 years on the Solway coast.

At Crosscanonby, near Maryport, are the remains of one of the later salt pans and it is one of the best preserved in England.  Salt was extracted by collecting sea water in tanks on the foreshore and leaving it to settle. It was then pumped into the upper tank before flowing into the pan houses. In large iron pans the saltwater was boiled, evaporating the water to produce salt crystals. 

Of course the picture I should have posted was the one in Extras taken by Gordon when he climbed up to the site of Roman Milefortlet 21, which is above Saltpans, and looked down. Whilst he did that, I had wandered along by the sea to get to the salt pans on the ground . . . and in his picture you can see me just arriving. Being right next to it, it was obviously impossible to take any meaningful photo at such close quarters. So I took photos of the view across the Solway to the Scottish coast. The light was poor, but the views across the sand, shingle and water were quite lovely. 


*Ann Lingard: The Fresh and the Salt: The Story of the Solway.