Salt and the salt industry

by Albert Frederick Calvert

“There is in the town of Namptwich two hundred and sixteen salt-houses of six leads apeece, and every of the said houses doth spend in wood per annum eight pounds so as there is spent in wood yearly within the said town in omnibus annis.... £1728

“Middlewich.

“There is, in the said town, one hundred and seven salt houses of six leads apeece, and one of four leads and every of the said houses doth spend yearly in wood the sum of £13. 6. 8, so as there is spent every year within the said town, £1435. 4. 0.

“Northwich.

“The said Northwich is a Burrow and holden of the Earle of Chester by the service of twelve armed men to serve at the Watergate in Chester in the time of wars betwixt England and Wales. There is, in the same towne or Burrow, one hundred and thirteen salt houses, every one containing four leads apeece, and one odd lead and one four leads which was given to the Earl of Derby by the Burgesses, occupiers of the said Town, for the portion of his house, and no land in the Town for it, and every four leads must have in provision of wood, nine quarters and so rateable, whether it be four leads or six leads, so that there is spent in wood in the said town 1026 quarters and a peece after the rate of five score to the hundred and after the rate of forty shillings per Quarter comes to £2056. 10. Spent in the wich houses yearly in wood, £5219. 14.”

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.”