1880.] Salt Industry of England. 155 
recorded that Henry the Third caused the brine springs to 
be destroyed to prevent the Welsh, with whom he was at 
war, from getting supplies of salt. The brine springs of 
Cheshire were described in 1808 as being found in the valleys 
of the Weaver and Wheelock, and nowhere else except at 
Dirtwich, on the border of the detached part of Flintshire, 
and a weak spring at Dunham, near the river Bollin. In 
the Dane valley springs are also supposed to have once 
existed in the neighbourhood of Congleton, as some of the 
inclosures were named Brinefield, Brinehill, &c. In addition 
to these places, Mr. W. H. Ormerod, in 1848, on the salt 
field of Cheshire, adds discoveries of brine at ACton, Broad- 
lane, and Hatherton, near Nantwich, the site of the viaduCt 
of the Manchester and Crewe Railway over the Wheelock, 
Red Lane, Elton, the Flint Mill near Middlewich, the west 
side of Hartford Bridge, Eaton, opposite Vale Royal, and 
the finding of brackish water at Minshall Vernon. At 
present the brine springs worked in Cheshire are in the 
same valleys as in the olden times, but the principal works 
are confined to the lines of the river, canal, and railway 
communication. Brine still flows to the surface at Brine 
Pits Farm and at Shewbridge, between Audlem and Nant- 
wich ; but in 1808 there were no manufactures above 
Nantwich ; and at Nantwich itself, one of the most ancient 
of the Wiches, salt ceased to be manufactured about the 
year 1847. At Dirtwich, the higher Wich on the Cheshire 
side ceased to be worked about the year 1830, and the lower 
Wich, in Maylor hundred, Flintshire, ceased about the year 
1856. In Staffordshire, at Shirleywich and Weston-upon- 
Trent, brine has been used from early times. There appear 
to have been numerous ancient pits along the banks of the 
Trent, but the top water having got in, they became waste. 
In modern times, the late Mr. Stevenson, C.E., was called 
in to advise, and he put down a shaft and tubed it with iron 
castings ; but this also proved a failure, and at present there 
is only one shaft at Weston and one at Shirleywich. In 
Shropshire, at Adderley Wood, between Adderley and 
Audlem, a trial shaft was sunk in the blue lias and perforated 
into red ground. The water found in this shaft was salt, as 
also in another shaft close by which had been sunk many 
years before. Brine springs have also been found in other 
parts of England ; as in Somersetshire, Westmoreland, 
Durham, Lancashire, and Yorkshire ; but they were either 
weak, like those occasionally met with in coal mines, or 
were situated where fuel was scarce, so that they have not 
been much noticed,, 
