Ecosal Christmas Greeting

A stop-motion film made by Andrew Fielding at the Museums at Night event held at Newlyn Art Gallery, Cornwall. Part of an Ecosal salt making demonstration. Filming made by Amanda Lorens and Cat Gibbard.

Dismantling the Pipe Organ at George St Chapel, Oldham

Spent two days 26-27 November watching the dismantling of the pipe organ at George Street Chapel, Oldham. Work was carried out by David Wood Organs of Huddersfield.

David Wood Organs, Huddersfield
left to right: Paul Rayner, David Wood, Michael Hynes, Michael Leadbeater

So many bits....

Ecosal-Atlantis Conference 21-22 November 2012

UK team at the conference centre at Vitoria-Gasteiz, Alava
Roger Herbert, Andrew Fielding, Mark Brisbane, David Cranstone

The Salt Valley at Salinas de Annana.
A major restoration project bidding to become a World Heritage Site.

Salt samples from around the world at the exhibition centre
at Salinas de Annana includes salt from Halen Mon, Wales

A themed sweater for Ecosal-Atlantis, knitted by Annelise Fielding

Ecosal-Atlantis Conference 21-22 November 2012

Andrew will be speaking at the final Ecosal-Atlantis Conference in Vitoria, Spain.
21-22 November 2012
He will be making a presentation about
1. The Themed Route for Salt in the European Route of Industrial Heritage  - ERIH
and
2. The proposed salt network suggested as a co-ordinated network for salt sites in the UK
it is proposed that ECOSAL-ATLANTIS can act as the co-ordinator for the salt route in ERIH.
Brian Irving, Manger at the Solway Coast AONB will also be speaking about the role the AONB's can play in developing a salt network as a theme within all coastal AONBs in England, wales, Scotland and N Ireland.
Conference Programme

Solway Coast Visit with Katia Hueso

We re-visited the Solway Coast this week to show Katia Hueso salt making sites from Whitehaven to the Solway Coast. Katia is the founder of the Association of Friends of Inland Salinas in Spain, and a member of the ECOSAL-ATLANTIS project. See also the Wetland Link International listing.
Over two days we visited The Beacon at Whitehaven to see the portrait of William Brownrigg.
Crosscanonby salt works.
St Johns Church, Crosscanonby to see the tomb of John Smith, Salt Officer at Crosscanonby.
Solway Coast AONB Discovery Centre and meet Brian Irving, the AONB manager.
Campfield Marsh RSPB Reserve and meet with reserve manager Norman Holton.
The weather was dreadful, cold, driving rain and low cloud, but we persevered and completed the itinary that will for a basis for the Cumbrian part of the UK's Ecosal-Atlantis network of salt making sites, heritage and cultural route.

Salt making site at Crosscanonby, Solway Coast AONB.
Note the brine well structure in the sand below high water mark.

Katia Heuso standing by the brine well structure with the sea-defenses that protect
 the Crosscanonby salt making site located below Swarthy Hill.

Meeting with Brian Irving, manager of the Solway Coast AONB.
Brian, Katia and Andrew Fielding at the Solway Coast Discovery Centre, Silloth. 

Katia and Norman Holton, Reserver Manager at the RSPB Reserve at Campfield Marsh.
They are standing in front of a barn which will be refurbished for use of the RSPB for receiving
visitors, school groups and  as a base for the volunteers who help at the reserve.
Work starts on the centre in coming weeks and should be opened by mid-2013.

Middlewich Salt Fair 19-20 Oct 2012

Representing the Ecosal-Atlantis project at the Middlewich Salt Fair.
Kerry Fletcher's volunteers will be evaporating brine in stainless steel pans outside the hall.

Visit to Hilbre Island - salt making site

Great visit today to see the site of historic salt making at Hilbre Island 2 miles off the coast of The Wirral peninsular. The main island is the one to the right across the sand.
It is only possible to walk to the island at low tide, and knowledge of the incoming tides are essential for a safe return journey. We were fortunate in being driven across the sands in the Land Rover belonging to the Wirral Ranger Service -

Hilbre Island webcam
The Coastal Observatory webcam is located at the top of the radar tower on Hilbre Island. The camera and telemetry equipment is currently dependent on a battery/petrol generator supply. A small wind turbine power generator was installed in February 2005. 
National Oceanography Centre, Natural Environment Research Council.

The web cam takes images every 4 minutes, and a panorama every hour. These are archived and allow you to look at previous images and panoramas of the island back to 2004.
Our visit was captured on the panorama and can be see at the Hilbreimages web page.

Friends of Hilbre Island
The salt making site is being researched and recorded by Roy Foreshaw and Christine Longworth.
Hilbre will feature in the Ecosal route of historic salt making sites in the UK.

Christine Longworth and Roy Forshaw standing by rock cut channels and brine tanks. 

Links with the Association of Friends of Inland Salinas

We shall soon be meeting with Katia Heuso, the founder of the Association, and showing her the historic salt making sites of Cumbria. We first met Katia in 2003 when we organised an international meeting of salt researchers at the Lion Salt Works. We have been working together by email on the ECOSAL-ATLANTIS project.
The Friends of Inland Salinas blog site - http://www.salinasdeinterior.org/

Link to the video of the work of Katia and her husband Jesus on the salt making sites in Guadalajara, Spain.

Documental: La Sal Escondida

http://www.miguelpavon.com/?p=70

Video of Filming the Reconstructed Congregation at George Street Chapel

Our video record of the filming day at George Street Chapel on 30 September, 2012.

Filming at George Street Chapel

We spent today working with Julian Baum and Claire Duval of Take 27 filming at George Street Chapel for Age UK Oldham. To help with interpreting the history of the chapel we wanted to reconstruct how a congregation might have looked. The short section will be set about 1916 when the chapel was celebrating its first centenary year and will be inserted into 3d digital reconstructions of how the chapel was constructed and altered throughout its life.

Take 27 filming the 'congregation' at George Street Chapel.

Compilation photograph, piecing together all the shots of 25 members of the 'congregation' each shot in seven different places within the chapel to give the impression of over 150 people.
The final piece will be part of a 30 second video clip. 

Verdin Technical School

Spent the morning being given a tour of the Verdin Technical School and Gymnasium. Until lately run as an art college by Mid-Cheshire College. Donated by Sir Joseph Verdin, salt proprietor of Cheshire to commemorate Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee, 1897. Opened by the Duke of Westminster.
Carolyn Shepherd is seeking to take over the building for use as affordable artists studios by the London Artists Collective.
I've been asked to help to help with the heritage aspects and to help them recruit a conservation architect.
It is strange in this QE II Diamond Jubilee year, and just after the 2012 London Olympic Games, to stand next to stained glass windows celebrating Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee and gymnastics, in an empty arts college!

The official opening of the Verdin Technical School and Gymnasium  by
the Duke of Westminster 24 July 1897

Theoretical Archaeology Group Talk

Andrew has had a paper accepted in the 2012 Theoretical Archaeology Group Conference to be held in December at Liverpool University - TAG2012.
More info to follow when the Sessions are finalised.
The talk will be about public engagement for salt making through work associated with the ECOSAL-ATLANTIS project.

Visit to Goodshaw Chapel

Yesterday we accompanied Age UK Oldham to visit Goodshaw Chapel, between Rawtenstall and Burnley, Lancashire as part of our consultancy role in the conservation and restoration of George Street Chapel, Oldham for Age UK Oldham.
Goodshaw Chapel was built in 1760 as a congregation of Baptists and Wesleyan Methodists. It was left unchanged from 1860 when a new chapel was built in the bottom of the valley.
The chapel fell into dis-repair and was eventually gifted to the Department of the Environment and is now under the Guardianship of English Heritage.

Entrance to Goodshaw Chapel.

Looking towards the pulpit.
The two entrance doors are either side of the pulpit 

The gallery fronts had at one time been painted blue, similar to George Street Chapel.

Artistic interpretation of previous colour schemes.

'Bats' to aid self-guided tours of the chapel.

The walls are constructed with tipped stones to help shed water and prevent damp penetration.
The effect is to give the elevations an unusual serrated look

Marshchapel, Lincolnshire

Following our demonstration at Saltfleetby, Teresa Maybury took us on a tour of the area she has described in her recent PhD thesis, A Century of Change on the Lindsey Marshland: 1540-1640

Salt makers established mounds on the edge of the marsh on which they collected brine at high tide and evaporated it to make salt. The mounds can clearly be seen on Google Maps. Gradually the mounds became too large to operate properly and new mounds were started further out into the marsh. The raised mounds became good agricultural soil and were taken over as new farmland.

Teresa linked her work to documents and maps, the main map being a survey by Haiwarde dated 1595. The map has been copied and mounted in the village hall. We were met by the Chairman of the Marshchapel Parish Council, Ian Burgess. Other copies exist in national archives.

A copy of the Marshchapel survey drawn up by Haiwarde in 1595.

A detail from the map showing the areas of higher ground made by land-raising within the marsh area.
The sea is to the east, right of the map.

The mounds where the salt making sites were located can be seen against the trees.
Looking westward, ie inland across what would have been salt marsh in the sixteenth century.

Salt Making at Saltfleetby

July 22 a great summers day, for a change in 2012, with a demonstration of salt making in replica ceramic salt troughs based on an excavation at Langtoft, Lincolnshire. A 'Hands on History Workshop' as part of the Lincolnshire Coast Marshes Gazing Project.

Tom Lane, AP Services adds more peat underneath the salt pans.

Watching salt crystalize.

Replica Iron Age salt pans, based on excavations at Langtoft, Lincolnshire.

Ref: Lane and Morris A Millenium of Salt Making describes the Langtoft site and the difference of salt making techniques over time.

Video of Salt Making Demonstration at Newlyn Art Gallery

Finally finished the video made during our Ecosal field trip to Cornwall, where we took part in Newlyn Art Galley's Museum at Night event as part of the Penzance Convention. Share the experience here.

The SCAPE Trust - Brora and St Monans Salt Works, Fife

St Monans Salt Works were built in 1771.

We visited this site as part of a visit to St Andrews University to see Tom Dawson and Joanna Hambly of The SCAPE Trust about their participation in ECOSAL-ATLANTIS. 

SCAPE have been involved in the excavation of a salt works at Brora, Sutherland. The project received an award from the Association of Industrial Archaeology for the Best Volunteer Project of 2010.

It is suggested that SCAPE utilise their local contacts and volunteers around the Scottish coastline to coordinate the historic salt making sites of Scotland with the ECOSAL network and Route of Traditional Salt Making.

Not being on the Atlantic coast we can't include St Monans, or the other salt making sites of the Firth of Forth in ECOSAL-ATLANTIS, but as ECOSAL develops from the initial INTERREG funded project we shall look to expand to include sites around the whole of the UK coastline.

The windmill is opened to visitors between July and September.

Paula Martin summarised the history of St Monans - Described by the minister of St Monans in 1790 as 'One of the neatest and best combined salt-works upon the coast', this saltworks was established by Sir John Anstruther, who inherited these lands in 1753. In 1771 (with Robert Fall) he establsihed the Newark Coal and Salt company, integrating a colliery (on the site of Coalfarm, NO50SW 312), a windmill (NO50SW 48), a waggonway and salt pans; these last were built along the shore in 1772-4. Salt was exported through St Monans harbour (NO50SW 81).

The waggonway went out of use in 1794, on account of reduced coal production resulting from a major underground fire. Mining continued on a small scale (apparently to supply the pans) but pumping stopped in 1803; the pans themselves were abandoned by 1823.
Taken together, these remains represent an early intergrated development which has not been obliterated by later works.

Fife Education - Energy Resources

St Monans windmill and salt pans. 

Information panels describing the salt pans, brine tank and windmill.

How the pan houses might have looked.

One of the pan houses has been consolidated.

Remains of a St Monans pan house.

Brine channel drawing sea water to the pan houses.

Barden Mill - Salt Glaze Ceramics for Ecosal

Errington Reay have been making salt glaze pots at Bardon Mill, near Hexham on the A69 since 1878.

Today at Bardon Mill, they are proud of the fact that Errington Reay is the last commercial pottery in Britain licensed to produce salt glaze pottery.

They still practice traditional ways of hand throwing, hand moulding and casting. They grind and mix their own clay and together with specialised salt glazing and firing techniques produce a truly unique textured finish.

Like with the Solway Ceramics Centre, we visited the pottery to see if they would consider participating as a cultural element in the Ecosal Route of Traditional Salt Making. As we have travelled around the west coast of the UK we also visit garden centres and find Errington Reay salt glaze pots for sale all over the country. We think that their pots should feature in the Ecosal route because not only do they produce a fantastic range of pots, but also because they still use traditional processes to make them in their historic mill site.

Karl Jacques shown us around and was really enthusiastic about the company history, the site and the potters who continue the traditional skills.

If you have a choice in a garden centre between these UK made pots or a cheaper import, support our local producers and buy Errington Reay salt glaze pots. They also come with a 10 year guarantee!

Throwing pots from an extruded cylinder of clay.

The Errington Reay stamp before firing and glazing.

Huge range of Errington-Reay pots at the Bardon Mill potery, near Hexham, Northumberland.

The salt kiln.

Karl Jacques.