Middlewich Salt Works

Salinae

SalinaBritannia · Middlewich, Cheshire, EnglandBuilt 50 BCE

About

Cheshire's brine reserves earned this settlement the same functional name, Salinae, as its sister town Droitwich, and it gives up some of Roman Britain's best physical evidence for how salt actually got made. Excavated brine pits, twin evaporation kilns, and storage dolia have all turned up at a single worker's yard here. Waterlogging preserved timber equipment intact, letting archaeologists reconstruct the whole process from pit to finished block. The trade already had Iron Age roots before Rome arrived and never let up under occupation.

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.