Salt
In the past salt was very valuable; workers were often paid in part with salt coining the term “salary”.
It was used in considerable quantities for culinary, tanning and curative purposes, also as an antiseptic (“rubbing salt into the wound”) and as a way of preserving meat (many bacteria finding it harder to live in very salty environments).
Some people still claim that the standards of a primitive society can be measured by the amount of salt available.
Historically, Lymington salt marshes provided an excellent place for salt production from the Middle Ages to the 19th Century. They benefited from strong sunshine and low humidity which helped evaporation.
Although documentary proof is lacking, it is suspected than salt was being extracted from sea water all along the south coast from at least late Saxon times.
However, the first records of salt production in Hampshire are in the Domesday Book, listing 22 saltpans divided between 12 manors in 1086.
Among other records, a large salt ‘granary’ existed on Lymington Quay in 1250.
In 1694, the salt industry had become profitable enough to attract the attentions of the powers on high, and it was William III that decided to impose a duty on salt.
Salt had been sold for 2/8 a bushel, and the additional duty came to 1/8.
A much higher duty was also imposed on foreign salt. Shortly afterwards, in 1697, the duty was doubled to 3/4.
In 1730 the salt duties were repealed, but this only lasted for two years. (A bushel of salt would be a cube of dimensions 7 inches or 17 cm)
According to records of salt duties, Lymington’s greatest prosperity was during the mid 1740’s.
Between 1724 and 1766, around 184,480 bushels, or about 4600 tons was produced.
By 1796, there were 103 saltpans in the Lymington area!
After this the salt industry began a long and slow decline, mostly due to crippling taxes on coal (£30 for each ton), which was needed to heat the saltpans and improved transport carrying cheaper Cheshire mined salt to the rest of the country.
In 1798, the salt taxes were doubled yet again.
The amount collected in 1804 was only half that collected in 1797 and by 1813, the number of pans was down to only 68.
By 1817, taxation on salt, transportation costs of coal, and taxes on the coal itself had raised the price of salt to over 60 times its original cost.
The Salt Industry was in terminal decline, and in 1825, efforts had already started to fill in the evaporation ponds to make the area more suitable for grazing cattle.
Sensing the changing times an oyster farm also began. In 1866 the industry ceased, when the last saltern closed.
Only two of the windmills used in the extraction process were still standing in 1871.
How salt pans work
Seawater is channelled into trenches which carry it into many large, shallow gravel bottomed ponds.
Here, much of the water is allowed to evaporate in the sun.
The partially evaporated water is then drawn off by copper pipes into a boiling house, and boiled in 2-yard square copper or iron pans, which takes about 8 hours.
The piping is powered by wind pumps, which stood some 12 to 14 feet high.
An average sized saltpan can make about three tons of salt per week, and consumes about 18 bushels of coal for every ton of salt produced.
The pans only run for 16 weeks during an average summer, but in a year with excellent weather, this can be extended for as long as 22 weeks.
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