Canvey Island Red Hill Saltern
About
Fire-scorched clay gave this low Thames-estuary mound its telltale rust color, one of hundreds of so-called Red Hills that once ringed the Essex coast. Workers dug shallow lagoons to trap seawater, then boiled the brine down over hearths inside clay-walled furnaces until only salt cakes remained. A scheduled saltern survives southeast of Great Russell Head Farm, its buried tanks and briquetage still legible in the marsh soil. Essex once held over three hundred such mounds.
What happened here
Shallow pans are cut into the flats behind a beach or a lagoon and filled at high tide through a gate. The water is walked through a sequence of pans, each shallower and saltier than the last, and the sun does the rest over the summer. In late season the crust is raked into ridges, left to drain, then carried off in baskets. The work is hot, glaring and hard on the feet, and it is done by contracted labour on a short season. Salt preserves fish and meat, cures hides and pays part of the state's revenue, so the pans are regulated and often leased from the state. A salina needs sun, wind and a tide, and it shuts down entirely when it rains.
Sources
Nearby
%20(16704064685).jpg?width=800)
Roman Maps shows the empire frozen at 11 August 117 CE, the day Trajan died — its moment of greatest territorial extent. Explore the full map →