Separating the Salt from the Sand

Photo sent from the Morecambe Bay Partnership of the talk 'Separating the Salt from the Sand' last Saturday at Silverdale.
A room full of people interested in the enigmatic, historic salt making process of washing salt from the sands and silts of Morecambe Bay. Hopefully the Morecambe Bay Partnership, through the Headland to Headspace programme will begin to seek out some of the sites mentioned in documents
The talk was an introduction to the process, which is little understood, and will lead to further work to understand how the process was carried out around the Bay from Barrow to Fleetwood.
Some members of the audience had already started personal research projects, making salt themselves, studying the monastic records or transcribing inventory records. Still lots to do though.
Hopefully we will be able to give a demonstration of the process during an event next summer.

Separating the Salt from the Sand

Talk to Headlands to Headspace, Morecambe Bay Partnership
Separating the Salt from the Sand
by Andrew Fielding
Saturday  3rd October
Elizabeth Gaskell Centre, Silverdale
Starts 2pm
Book through MBP

Buy a Copy of Thomas Birtles' Photographic Survey of Northwich 1891-2

http://www.blurb.co.uk/b/6449053-thomas-birtles-photographic-survey-of-northwich-ch

Thomas Birtles' Photographic Survey of Northwich, Cheshire 1891-1892 by Andrew Fielding, Annelise Fielding | Make Your Own Book

Salt Making at Holme Cultram Abbey

Salt Making Demonstration - Holme Cultram Abbey, Cumbria - 16 Sept 2015

Andrew and Annelise Fielding will be giving a demonstration of salt making at Holme Cultram Abbey, Abbeytown, Cumbria on Wednesday 16 September. Short opening talk 10am, fire lit 11am. Summary talk 3pm, close 4.30pm

The event takes place during a community excavation at Holme Cultram Abbey by Grampus Heritage for Solway Coast AONB and Solway Wetlands Landscape Partnership.

Tom Lane to Speak at the European Association of Archaeologists, Glasgow 2-5 Sept 2015

EAA Programme

This talk will take place on 5th Sept
ABSTRACT

LV4 - Maths Building 516
IMPACTS OF CLIMATE AND ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE: THE EFFECTS ON COASTAL SALTMAKING IN LINCOLNSHIRE, UK
Tom Lane ECOSAL UK

Following the results of English Heritage sponsored Surveys, chiefly in the 1980s, and subsequent investigative works, information is present about a series of past climate and environmental change events in the Fenland and coastal regions of Lincolnshire, Eastern England, covering some five millennia. These changes have resulted both in coastal erosion in places and elsewhere on the coast accretion. These altered landscapes affected not just coastal communities but those inland for up to 50km. Because of its specific natural resource requirements it is intended to view the issue through the coastal saltmaking industry, which flourished from the Bronze Age through to the end of the 16th century. The mapped west –east movement of the industry, and back again, reflects the displacement and movement of people, particularly the specialist saltmakers, and considers how such specialists may fare when the environment and resources necessary for their craft/industry is no longer available. The paper also considers human adaptability to such changes and asks what happened to people who were forced to move and become, in effect, refugees in their own country. Also touched on are issues of individual and group identity and cultural heritage of such groups.

Thomas Birtles' Photographic Survey of Northwich

A catalogue of photographs taken by Thomas Birtles between 1891 and 1892 will be published by Andrew and Annelise Fielding at the end of August. The photographs record the town as it was at the passing of the Brine Pumping (Compensation for Subsidence) Act of 1891. The town was at a point of change with brick buildings being replaced by timber-framed buildings as a form of subsidence resistance protecting structures from ground movements caused by rock salt mining and wild brine pumping.

The book is 248 pages long and includes maps showing the location of the buildings with 13 maps and all 251 photographs grouped by their location within the town. The book will retail at £15 in paperback. A&A Fielding Ltd.