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
