British Pathe News - Report of Salt Making at Aveiro, Portugal

Whilst visiting Aveiro, Portugal for the Ecosal-Atlantis meeting in November we sailed down the canal from the town centre to the salt museum, and then through this bridge along the west side of the town. Click on the link to see what it looked like in 1935 when British Pathe News visited and recorded the salt making there.

British Pathe News link
Salt Making at Aveiro, Portugal. 1935

Creating an Ecosal Route in the UK

Report posted on Bournemouth University Ecosal web site pages.
Creating an Ecosal Route in the UK

Presentation at the Ecosal-Atlantis meeting held at Aveiro, Portugal on 15 November, 2011.
Presentation given to Ecosal meeting

Video of the Aveiro Conference - in Portuguese!

Three Portuguese Salt Sites - part of the Ecosal-Atlantis Route

Spent four days in Portugal at a meeting of the Ecosal-Atlantis project to establish a salt route up the Atlantic coast. One day of site visits covered 200 km south from Aveiro.  More details and web links in next posting

Salina at Aveiro
British Pathe News 1935 - Aveiro salinas

Salina at Figuera da Foz
Nucleo Museologico do Sal

Salina at Rio Maior
Video by Carlos Silva

 

Talk at CBA: N and NW - Autumn meeting

Unravelling the archaeology and historic environment of the North and North West of England

Salt making in the NW of England within the context of traditional Salt making on the Atlantic coast of Europe

Andrew Fielding - A and A Fielding Ltd and Bournemouth University/ Ecosal-Atlantis Project

A talk to the CBA Groups for North and Northwest England. Saturday 29 October, 2011.

Starting at 9.20 - 16.30

Held at Kirkland Hall (beside Kendal Parish Church), Highgate, Kendal, Cumbria on a variety of topics on the latest research in the regions. Joint conference between CBA North and CBA North West. Tickets by cheque (to ‘CBA North West’), which are not sent out; cost £12 members, £14 non-members plus £4 optional lunch (voucher issued at registration). Contact John Roberts, CBA NW Membership Secretary, 22 Swinchiard Walk, Flint, CH6 5HB.

http://www.britarch.ac.uk/cban/docs/Kendal_booking_form.pdf

Facebook site and Blog for George Street Chapel

Age Concern Oldham have set up a Facebook site and a Blog site for George Street Chapel.

To keep up to date with all the developments at the grade ll* chapel restorations at George Street, Oldham become a friend or like

Friends of George Street Blogspot

Friends of George Street facebook page

£100,000 award for George Street Chapel

One of my projects to Help Age Concern - Oldham to restore the former Independent Methodist Chapel has just received a major boost with an award of £100,000 offered to the project from Andrew Lloyd Webber's Challenge Fund through the Architectural Heritage Fund and English Heritage.
Andrew Lloyd Webber Foundation

Our main application to the Heritage Lottery Fund is to be heard by the HLF Trustees on 2 December.

Salt Making at Middlewich Roman Festival MMXI

Raking salt

Lost in steam

"How do you get the salt in the water?"

Salt Making at the Middlewich Roman Festival MMXl

Ermine Street Guard at the Middlewich Roman Festival MMXl 

Visitors looking at how the firebox heats the salt pans

Raking salt from the replica Roman salt pans

Salt Making at Middlewich Roman Festival Sat-Sun 24-25 Sept

I will be leading Kerry Fletcher's volunteers in making salt as part of the Middlewich Town Council's latest Roman Festival.
Pictures of setting up on Friday 23 Sept to follow.
Salt making demo pics to follow over the week end and a video to be uploaded at the end event.

This will also be a part of the establishment of the Cheshire section of the UK Ecosal-Atlantic Route of Traditional Salt Making.

Sat Sunday 2011

Salt Sunday 2011 to be held at Northwich and Halton, Cheshire

A wonderful tomb dedicated to a salt officer can be found at John the Evangelist church at Crosscononby on the Solway Coast, Cumbria.
It will feature in the  Ecosal Atlantic Route of Traditional Salt Making.
Tomb of a Salt Officer at Croscannonby, Cumbria

Trial blog site for George Street Chapel

The Stage 2 submission to the HLF was submitted today by Age Concern Oldham to secure funds to restore the former Independent Methodist Chapel at George Street, Oldham.
The project will hear if it has been successful after the next HLF-NW trustees meeting on 2 December, 2011.
We propose a web presence supported by web site, Facebook site and a blog particularly for the Friends of George Street. To demonstrate what this might look like we set up a trial site for the Community Development Co-ordinator. Link to the Trial blog site for George Street Chapel restoration project.
A link to the project sites will follow.
Some £300,000 is needed in match funding, the organ alone requires a total of £70,000 to complete its refurbishment.

CBA North and CBA NW Joint Conference - 29 October 2011

We will be giving a talk on the Ecosal 'Traditional Salt Making - The Atlantic Route' at the joint CBA North and North West Archaeology Conference being held at Kirkland Hall, Kendal on Saturday 29 October 2011.
More details to follow.

Salt Making Demonstrations September 2011

We shall be demonstrating how to make salt at two events in September - at Mablethorpe, Lincolnshire and Middlewich, Cheshire.

NOTE August - sadly the Bathing Beauty Festival won't have our salt making demo. artsNK discovered that they could only pay Heritage Lincolnshire a total of £1,000 for their contribution - which included our participation - which they couldn't stretch to cover the costs of four people, materials and travel expenses, so they had to decline to participate. Shame, as it sounded like a good event. But, the artist who is the salt arch will still be there. Obviously they pay artists more money than archaeologists! or he works really cheaply!!
You will still find us at the Middlewich Roman Festival over the following weekend though.

Bathing Beauties Festival  - the longest linear coastal arts festival in Europe  16-17-18 Sept 2011
We will be making salt with Heritage Lincolnshire alongside the artNK installation on Sat 17 Sept using replica ceramic salt pans discovered at Ingoldmells.

artsNK - Structures on the Edge

artsNK are an innovative arts development team based in the South of the county, working on the follow up project to the original Bathing Beauties Beach Huts commissions, a series of new public art works, Structures on the Edge.

Visit their space on the promenade for a range of fun activities from making salt to wind socks, musical instruments to salt installations, inspired by the artists designs; 

A dramatic wind tower that draws in  the sound and power of the wind and a seaside space created out of Salt.

To quote their brochure "Salt Licks acts therefore as an ante-chamber that allows one to leave the mental and social space of the journey behind for another more contemplative space in closer connection with nature." 

Bathing Beauties Festival


The Roman Middlewich Festival MMXI  24-25 Sept 2011
We will be salt making alongside the Ermine Street Guard demonstrations.


More info to follow.


Roman Middlewich Festival MMXI

Heritage Open Days - George Street Chapel 2011

Please visit The George Street Chapel during Heritage Open days 2011.

http://www.heritageopendays.org.uk/directory/HOD000308E

Ecosal UK Sites

We spent three days in Cumbria last week looking at salt making sites inclusion in the Ecosal-Atlantis project to link sites in Portugal, Spain, France and the UK.
A notable site is at Crosscanonby.

Salina Fielding

We have been creating an experiment in our back garden to make salt by concentrating sea water from Cemlyn Bay. We started the experiment on 23 April by filling 10 gravel trays with sea water, later increasing the number to 16.

Each tray is made from black plastic and is 250mm x 400mm x 60mm and holds 2.5 litres of sea water.
As soon as the trays evaporate by half their volume the contents of two trays is combined to fill the next tray in the sequence, thus concentrating the brine in the set of salt trays (pans).

There are eight starter pans, four concentrator pans passing to two concentrator pans and then two single crystaliser pans.

8 starter pans - 20ltr
4 concentrator pans - 10ltr
2 concentrator pans - 5ltr
1 crystaliser pan A - 2.5ltr
1 crystaliser pan B - 2.5ltr or less

This makes a total sea water content of the salina 38.75ltr

To the original 25ltrs of starter sea water we added a further 25ltrs on the 30 April, 20ltrs on the 3 May and 20ltrs on the 17 May. Making a total volume of 90 ltrs having been added to the salina. Thus the salina had evaporated 51.25ltrs since it had started operations.

The first salt crystals were observed on 29 May. Though it had been stored in a closed garage for a week as we were away looking at salt making sites in Cumbria for Ecosal! This does also mean that it is not left outside during wet weather, which perhaps distorts its true operational parameters!

Image of the first salt crystals forming in Crystaliser Pan B.

Some nice pyramidal crystals

Salt Glazed Cheshire Cat

A salt glazed Cheshire Cat made by Richard Daniels of Creigiau Mawr Pottery at Carreglefn, Anglesey.

http://www.creigiaumawrpottery.co.uk/creigiaumawrpottery/Welcome.html

Pipe Organ Restoration

We made a visit today to George Sixsmith and Son Ltd to look at how pipe organs are restored, repaired and built. Andrew Sixsmith has his workshop at Mossley, Tameside, Greater Manchester. Our visit was made with Julian Baum and Claire Duval of Take 27 Ltd who are working on a 3d digital model of George St Chapel, Oldham which has a pipe organ requiring restoration.
We hope to include a digital explanation of how the organ works. Andrew (right) showed us a similar sized organ his team are currently working on, with all the parts laid out before being repaired, cleaned and then re-built.
A fascinating visit.

UK Salt Trail

Our UK Salt Trail is continuing to evolve. Further references and photographs will be added in coming weeks.
BLUE markers are for historic salt making sites. These will be further separated between sea salt works and inland salt works.
YELLOW markers are for modern sea salt producers.
ORANGE are rock salt mines.
GREEN are vacuum salt works.
PURPLE are gas storage scvhemes developed in rock salt strata.
A YELLOW BUILDING denotes a building related to the history of salt rather than a salt making site.

View Salt Trail in a larger map