THE DOMESDAY SURVEY 



since the Conquest at Bradfield Mansion. We then come to an important 

 group lying round Hamford Water, Great Oakley having two, Moze three, 

 Beaumont 1 (' Fulepet') two, and the three 'sokens' three, ten in all. In 

 this Hundred of Tendring, Great Bentley, Thorrington, and Elmstead, 

 though they barely touched the water, had each of them one saltpan. 



The Hundreds of Thurstable and of Winstree may be dealt with 

 together as the chief seat, in Essex, of the salt industry. Salcot (once 

 c Saltcot'), which derived its name from that industry, lies at the head of 

 the creek dividing the two Hundreds, although it was actually in 

 Winstree. Adjoining it, in that Hundred, was Great Wigborough 

 with six saltpans,* and, beyond it, Peldon with one, and Langenhoe 

 with one. To the south of Salcot, Tollesbury had three, and Tolles- 

 hunt Guisnes, within it, which had possessed twelve, still had five. 

 Adjoining Tollesbury and Salcot the other Tolleshunts had eight, and 

 Layer (Morney) one ; Goldhanger, to their west, had one and a half as 

 against half a one before, the Tothams seven as against five, and Hey- 

 bridge one. In addition to all these the king, we find, had four some- 

 where in Thurstable Hundred. Thus the entire group comprised 

 nearly forty. The only other saltpan mentioned in Essex belonged to 

 the unlikely manor of Wanstead. 



As late as Morant's day (1768) there was at Goldhanger still 'a 

 considerable saltwork, in which is used rock salt brought from Cheshire, 

 mixed with the seawater.' s But the old process of obtaining salt from 

 the sea alone has so long been obsolete that we are indebted for our 

 knowledge of it to a distinguished Scottish antiquary, Mr. George 

 Neilson of Glasgow. At the other end of England, 



In its saltworks the Solway possessed an industry of great importance and high anti- 

 quity. At intervals all along both its Scottish and English shores there were salinte or 

 saltworks. These were all situated at places where a loose and porous clayey sand, 

 called ' sleech,' formed natural salt beds presenting a surface capable of retaining a very 

 heavy solution of salt after being covered by the tide. The heat of the summer sun 

 disclosed the salty particles glittering on the sleech like hoar frost. From time to time 

 in due season the ' salters,' as the makers of salt were called, first collected the surface 

 sleech on the salt bed by a kind of sledge-drag or scraper, called a ' hap,' drawn by a 

 horse, carted it to the merse or grassy beach, and laid it in heaps beside the place where, 

 after some time, it was to be filtered. Neither the apparatus nor process of filtration 

 was complex. A hole dug in the merse formed a ' kinch ' or pit : its bottom and sides 

 were puddled with clay to make it watertight : on the bottom, above the clay, peats 

 were laid : the peats in turn were covered with a layer of sods : sleech was put on the 

 sods till the kinch was nearly filled to the brim, and finally as much salt water was added 

 as the kinch would hold. Filtering through the sleech and the sods the brine at length, 

 when strong enough to float an egg, was allowed to escape by a tube or spout into a 

 wooden reservoir, out of which it was lifted and carried in pails to the saltpans. These 

 were broad, shallow metal pans, beneath which great fires of peat were lit. After about 

 six hours' boiling the process was complete ; the liquid of the brine was wholly 

 evaporated, and the pans full of the finished article. The name of Saltcotes was given 

 to the little cluster of buildings which contained the pans, the ' girnels ' or stores in 

 which the salt was kept, and the dwellings of the salters. Such was the system pursued 

 on the Solway in the end of last [the eighteenth] century, and there is small reason to 



1 See p. 396 below. 



* Down by what are now 'Abbot's Hall saltings,' which belonged to Barking Abbey in 1086. 

 8 Morant, i. 389. Dr. Laver examined the saltpans there in 1889. 



381 



