22 
The quantity of white salt manufactured annually in each 
district is in round numbers : — - 
Winsford 1,000,000 tons. 
Northwich 600,000 ,, 
Middlewich 20,000 „ 
Sandbach 100,000 „ 
1,720,000 „ 
The first pans used in the manufacture of salt of which 
we have any record were made of lead, A sheet of lead 
about J inch thick and 2 feet 8 inches square, in the case 
of a pan in my possession, was obtained and bent up at the 
sides, and the corners hammered together. This pan was 
from 3 to 4 inches deep.* Six of these pans were usually 
set over flues in a small room. The contents of these six 
pans or “leads,” as they were called, formed the unit of 
measurement in the salt trade when every maker was regu- 
lated by laws as to quantity of brine, time of taking it, 
hours of drawing salt, &c. So strict were the laws that an 
officer called a “Pan cutter” was employed to see that all 
the pans conformed to the standard pan. If any were larger 
he was to cut them down. After a time four pans took the 
place of the six, and were of equal capacity in the whole. 
Dr. Jackson, about 1668, describes these four pans as made 
of iron and superseding the six leaden ones. Their size, he 
says, was about a yard square and about 6 inches deep, and 
they held 28 gallons. In Dr. Brownrigg’s time, 1765, the 
pans held 800 gallons, and Jars says the largest pans at 
Northwich, in 1765, were 20 feet long by 9 or 10 wide, 
holding about 1,100 gallons. Now the small pans used for 
boiled salt, which are the smallest in the trade, are from 
25 to 35 feet long by from 20 to 24 wide, and 15 to 18 
inches deep, averaging 5,000 gallons to the pan. The pans 
used for making coarse-grained salt vary from 50 to 70 feet 
in length — some few being even longer than this— and about 
* There is an old lead in Warrington Museum, found at Northwich. 
It measures 3 feet 8 inches on greatest length, and 2 feet 8 inches in 
width, being 4 inches deep. It would hold about 20 gallons at most^ 
The old pan in my possession, which is 25 inches square by 3 inches 
deep, would only contain about 7 gallons. 
