Sleech Salt Making from the Solway to the Mersey in the Medieval and Early-Modern Period

Salt making by the method known as ‘sleeching’ was practised extensively along the coasts of North-West England and southern Scotland, from earliest times until it came to a sudden end in the eighteenth century with the widespread availability of cheap rock salt from Cheshire. The method involved the gathering of salt-enriched sand from below the high-tide mark, and washing the same in troughs to produce a concentrated brine, which was then evaporated in lead pans. The region from Solway to Mersey was one of only four parts of Britain where the necessary conditions for sleeching could be found, namely a considerable tidal range, extensive sandy shores backed up by flat land above the spring tide line, and easy access to plentiful supplies of fuel, generally peat. Physical, cartographic, place-name and documentary evidence show that, at its height, more than one hundred locations along the coast were engaged in the manufacture of salt, largely as a seasonal by-employment, and generally for local consumption.