Salt on your fish?

As a youngster, I used to think that salt came from the sea and was very confused to learn that salt was being mined in nearby towns in Cheshire, and had been since Roman times. I wasn’t completely wrong, just 220 million years out of date! The local towns lie on fault lines in the Cheshire plain that hold vast salt deposits from the Triassic period. The Romans were the first to exploit these stores and set up industrial scale extraction for the salt and called these towns Salinae or “the salt workings”. The Saxons continued the practice using ‘Wich’ as their name for salt working. The town, that we are passing through, is between several other towns know as Wichs, such as Nantwich, Northwich and Droitwich, so it was named “Middlewich.

On the map, Middlewich is like a spider, it’s the meeting place for three rivers, three canals and three main roads. During the Roman period there were seven major roads meeting here so they even nicknamed it ‘Medius Vicus’, the town at the junction of the roads.

By the start of the 20th century the number of industrial salt works in the town declined from over hundred in the 13th century to just nine, with a few of open pan salt works close to the canal. The Grand Trunk Canal, now called the Trent and Mersey, was used to transport the salt up to Liverpool and the rest of the world. A daily canal packet boat also ran up to Manchester and Liverpool to take mail, passengers and freight, returning every night ready for the next run.

During the Middle Ages, the salt mining attracted traders and regular markets were run. Surprisingly, Middlewich has remained quite small and managed to retain its medieval town status, avoiding the invasion of the big supermarkets. The salt industry is still here. During the earlier 20th century, salt was processed and distributed by brand names such as Cerebos and Saxo, but in 1969 British Salt opened a state-of-the-art plant in Middlewich. It now produces approximately 800,000 tonnes (880,000 tons) of pure white table salt every year and, for over sixty years, it has been the premier supplier of salt for the UK, including supermarket own brands. So if you live in the UK, you’ve probably got some salt in your cupboard from under this very town!

The long-term effect on the land of salt extraction can be seen in the numerous flashes, or lakes, that have appeared in this region. Many have been given status as nature reserves and, due to the salty water, are populated by coastal birds.

It’s a friendly little town and they do like to celebrate their history. The annual Middlewich Folk and Boat Festival takes place in June. It’s been running for over twenty years, and is very colourful, with exhibitions, a funfair, floating boat market, music, dancing and lots of food. 

Whenever we cruise to Middlewich, we know there’s a lovely chip shop just by Kings Lock. It has an excellent reputation that is well known in the boating community, so we always try to time it so we can pop in for an order, but it makes me snigger when they ask if I’d like some salt with that. (I have to wonder if they collected it from the back yard!)