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