SUBSIDENCE NEAR THE DANE BRIDGE, NORTHWICH
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—
“Namptwich.