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As you approach the Lion Salt Works near Northwich you see a striking example of the dramatic effects the salt industry has had on the Cheshire landscape. On either side of the road are lakes known as flashes that were formed when a salt mine collapsed in 1928. There are many such lakes dotted about the area and they have become wildlife havens.
Rock salt mining began in the locality in 1670. Up until then, salt had been produced since the Iron Age by boiling brine. It was this earlier method that was employed at the Lion Salt Works.
The works was opened in 1894 in the yard of the Red Lion Hotel. The hotel was later demolished but the owners of the salt works then built a new inn for their employees. The works was owned by six generations of the Thompson family. In its last years, the firm exported much of its product to West Africa. But civil war and political instability disrupted this market, which led to the closure of the business in 1986.
The works then became a museum. But the buildings were dilapidated, so the site was closed in 2012 for a £10 million restoration, and reopened three years later.
A visit begins in the Red Lion Inn, where you can see a recreation of the managers’ office. A display explains the history of salt production in Cheshire. Fragments of a lead pan used by the Romans to boil brine and a 17th-century wooden salt scoop can be seen. In later centuries a thriving chemical industry developed in the area using salt as a main ingredient.
Salt was laid down in the locality from seas that dried up 250 million years ago. Rainwater subsequently dissolved the underground rock salt to create brine reservoirs, and it was one of these that the Lion Salt Works exploited.
A Marcus Allen steam engine drove a pump, known as a nodding donkey, to raise brine from 40m below ground. The steam was raised in a big Cornish-type boiler made by Abraham Lord of Rochdale. The boiler was brought to the site after it had been used for decades elsewhere. It is hard to imagine aged plant being recycled in this way today.
The nodding donkey operated night and day, and the brine was collected in an enormous tank that dominates the approach road to the works. This tank could hold 30,000 gallons, and from here the brine was pumped to giant, shallow pans in nearby buildings.
The brine-filled pans were heated from below by coal furnaces. As the water boiled off, salt crystals formed, increased in size and fell to the bottom of the pans. Clouds of vapour filled the room, and the heat and humidity forced the workers to go bare-chested. The men raked and skimmed the salt from the pans and put it into tubs to make lumps of salt. So the workers were known as lumpers. After their shifts, when the men slaked their thirsts in the inn, they added salt to their beer to replace that lost through sweat.
From the pan houses the salt was taken to a stove house where it was dried over flues, before being passed through hatches to a warehouse above. Here you can see a large crushing mill which was powered by a steam engine before conversion to electricity. Lumps of salt were loaded into the mill where knives and rollers crushed them. Sieves then graded the salt into different sizes, and finally the product was bagged at the bottom of the mill. The mill is an impressive sight, but its working days are long gone.
Kids can play with models in the warehouse to get a feel for the processes involved. They can turn a handle to work a model pump to bring brine into a miniature boiling pan. Another model shows lumpers raking salt from a pan (pictured). There are also intriguing old photos showing scenes of subsidence owing to salt mining.
Right next to the works is the Trent and Mersey Canal, which was used to bring in coal and to transport away the salt. A railway branch line was also brought into the site. On display is a railway salt wagon, which, unlike standard wagons, has a pitched roof to keep out rainwater.
A visit to the works gives a fascinating overview of an industrial process that has been superseded by modern methods.