I98 A HISTORY OF SALT-MAKING IN ESSEX. 



Thurstable), which form the northern half of our coast-line. 

 That this really was the case may be doubted. One cannot help 

 thinking that many salt-pans must have existed in the four 

 other Hundreds which form the southern half of our coast-line 

 (namely, Dengie, Rochford, Barstable, and Chafford), but that, 

 for some reason, they were not entered on the returns furnished 

 by those who made the Great Domesday Survey. 



At all events, it is certain that salt has been made, at some- 

 time or another, on this southern portion of our coast-line, as is 

 proved by the field-names referred to above and other information 

 given hereafter. In Dengie Hundred, on the north bank of the 

 Crouch, there is still (as Dr. Laver has pointed out to me) a farm 

 bearing the name of "Salt-coats," situated at the head of 

 Clement's-Green Creek. 9 Further, Benton says 10 that "indications 

 of old saltcotes or salt-pits " are to be found all along the south 

 bank of the Crouch (in Rochford Hundred), from Hcckley to 

 Pagleshani. In regard to Paglesham, Dr. Laver writes me as 

 follows : — 



"About 1820, when my father was tenant of East Hall, a marsh of thirteen, 

 acres, lying next the sea-wall and known as Salt-pan Marsh, was in grass. Its 

 surface was very uneven, by leason of the large number of shallow ponds it 

 contained — the pans in which sea-water had been evaporated formerly for salt- 

 making. As my father wished to giow corn on it, he decided to level it, which 

 he did during one winter by means of spade labour, thereby adding to the farm a. 

 most productive held. For many years after this, it was not uncommon for men 

 working in the held to pick up small silver and copper coins— some, I believe, 

 of the time of Charles II. : others, I fancy, earlier." 



" I do not know when these salt-works ceased working; but there is evidence 

 that they were in work so far back as the time of Queen Elizabeth. The 

 materials of the store-houses were known to have been brought away after it fell 

 into disuse and to have been used at East Hall in the erection of a barn, which 

 was still standing in 1867. These timbers were of oak and were clearly of the 

 age stated. Many of them retained grooves which had been intended to 

 accommodate sliding window-shutters." 



That salt-making continued to be a flourishing industry on 

 the Essex coast throughout the Middle Ages is clear from the 

 many references to it which occur in wills of the Fifteenth and 

 Sixteenth Centuries. 



Thus, in 1497, John Beriffe the Elder, merchant, of 

 Brightlingsea, left, for the purchase of two bells for the parish 



9 It is marked on Chapman and Andre's Map of Essex (1777) 



10 Hist. Koch/01 d Hund., p. 286. 



