A HISTORY OF SALT-MAKING IN HSSEX. 



I 9 9 



church, "one hundred marks which William Boundeand Robert 

 Barlow owe me for one lot of salt." 11 



In 1 501, Henry Boode, of Burnham, left his house to his 

 wife, except ' ; the berne [barn] in which my salte lyeth " and a 

 new shop with an inner chamber in which more salt lay, and 

 he directed that she was not to meddle with these until the salt 

 was out of them. 1 ' 2 



In 1547, John Creke, of Hockley, describing himself as a 

 " weller " (by which, clearly, he meant a salt-boiler), left to his 

 son Thomas his " salcotte and iiij ledds belonginge to the said 

 salt house, with all other implements that a weller ought to have, 

 but no salte." 13 By " ledds," Creke meant, no doubt, leaden 

 evaporating pans. His salt cote must have been in that small 

 part of Hockley which extends northwards and abuts upon the 

 estuary of the River Crouch. 



On Whit-Sunday in 1532, when the churchwardens of 

 Heybridge made a " play " and a feast in their church, they paid 

 two pence " for a pecke of whyte salte" — made, no doubt, in the 

 vicinity. 11 



On 1 June 1567, one Edward Goodding wrote from Ipswich 

 to Sir William Cecil : 15 " I trust to set the [salt-]house in Essex 

 fullie on worke the nyntheof June at the furthest; and, upon one 

 wick press made, I wiil await upon your honour." 



The Rev. William Harrison, of Radwinter, writing in 1587, 

 says 11 * that " as wel the baie as white [salt] are wrought and 

 made in England, and more white also upon the west coast, 

 toward Scotland, in Essex, and elsewhere, but of the salt 

 water." 



Salt-making continued to flourish on our coast until the 

 beginning of the Nineteenth Century, when it began to decline. 



In or about 1710, when some bill relating to the salt trade 

 was before Parliament, a return was made of the places at which 

 salt was then made in England 17 ; and from this it appears that, 

 in Essex, salt was made or refined at Manningtree, Colchester, 



11 Will dated 20 Jan. 1496-7, and proved 18 July 1497 (P.C.C., 10 Home). 



12 Will dated 20 Feb. and proved 20 April 1502 (P.P.C., 12 Moone). 



13 Will dated 28 Mar. 1547 (Archd. Essex, 10 Bastwick, 100-101). 



14 See Nichols' Illustrations of the Manners and Expenses of Ancient Times (1797), 

 p. 181. 



15 S.P.D., Eliz., x'iii., no. 1. 



16 See Holinshed's Chronicles, i., p. 241. In the earlier edition (1577) the words " in 

 Essex and elsewhere " did not appear. 



17 See copy in Brit. Mus. (816. m. 13, ff. 108 and 109). 



