Wednesday 24 February 2010

Salt Warehouse Features in the 2010 Winter Olympics, Vancouver, Canada

Whilst we are in the middle of watching the winter olympics being held in Vancouver, Canada those actually attending the games can visit a restored salt. 


Last year we were able to provide some information about salt packing to George Martin, then working for Commonwealth Historic Resource Management Limited, Vancouver. CHRML were working on the restoration of the salt warehouse which is now a prime feature of the Winter Olympics.

Hal Kalman kindly sent over some pictures of the warehouse taken by their architects as repair works were completed. It will have a temporary life as an Olympic facility for the 2010 Winter Olympics (it is within the Olympic Village), and will become a restaurant / pub / bakery in the heart of a new neighbourhood some months later.



Surviving salt warehouses are now quite rare, so it is nice to see this being retained within a huge area of redevelopment.
Photographs below provided by
Harold D. Kalman PhD CAHP
Commonwealth Historic Resource Management Limited
Suite 308 - 2233 Burrard Street, Vancouver, BC  V6J 3H9  (Canada)
T: 604.734.7505 F: 604.734.7991
For more information contact kalman@chrml.com  http://www.chrml.com/

Tuesday 2 February 2010

Salt Making on Willow Tree Fen: 30-31 Jan 2010






















Entrance to Willow Tree Fen.








View looking towards north west towards Willow Tree Fen.
Field walking the fen.
Briefing the volunteer field walkers.

Excavation reveals a ring ditch with a saltern site in the centre. The sandy colour shows one side of the ring ditch. The other side of the ring ditch is at the far end of the machine cut trench. The hearth is in the centre.

       
We demonstrated how brine is evaporated to make white salt crystals. Given the very cold weather conditions we used our metal salt pan to show the process. We felt that the ceramic salt pans would suffer in the sub zero temperatures. We were able to show those who attended the weekend different replica ceramic salt pans and they were able to take away salt crystals at the end of the day in replica briquetage pots.
Our attempt to fire ceramic salt pans in a paper kiln were not so succesful. Due to the very cold conditions the two raw clay salt pans and the replica Adlington doll froze whilst they were transported cross country (temperatures eaching minus 6 degrees C) . The paper kiln we made fired well but the clay shattered during the firing process. We hope to be able to retry again in warmer weather conditions later in the year. David Hopkins, illustrator for Heritage Trust for Lincolnshire, stands next to the paper kiln. It was his sketches that suggested wattled and daub structures might be used as covers over salt kilns which suggested our use of a paper kiln to fire pottery as part of this demonstration day. A paper kiln was something we could build in a day and fire. We hope to try a proper wattle and daub structure over a kiln in a future experiment.
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