SALT MAKING IN THE ADUR VALLEY

Ref:  In Holden & Hudson's 1981 article on Salt-making in the Adur Valley, Sussex,
(Sussex Archaeological Collections 119

 

cf. Reconstructed map of the Adur Valley in Medieval times

History of Shoreham (Salt Works)
 

  • c. 950  Salt Works
  • New Monks Farm, Lancing is the location of a Saxo-Norman salt works. The oldest chert from Britain proven to have been used for boiling brine was found here. Saltern Mounds have also been discovered on this site, Lancing. (This area is also known as Mash Barn.)
  • Salt-making occurred from Saxon times until the 14th century all up the lower Adur Valley, including New Monks Farm at Lancing,  Applesham, Coombes, Annington & Botolphs, Upper Beeding, Bramber, Spratt's Marsh and Sele.
  • "An excavation by Con Ainsworth c.1971 of a ploughed-out saltern mound, one of a large group, found Saxo-Norman pottery but also "one rim and a joining body sherd....of Portchester Ware, dating to the tenth century. A scale-like deposit found on one sherd was analysed by D Shelverton and found to contain substances demonstrating that the pottery vessel had been used for boiling concentrated brine."
  • There is also evidence found of a Post Hole and a Hearth.

    • <http://www.rchme.gov.uk/nmr.html>
  • First Internet Source (located by Ray Hamblett)
  • Report on the Adur Valley eForum
  • Ray Hamblett's Web Page

    • Salt Works File (notes)
     
     

    A new record has been added to the database table 'Adur Valley Book List'.

    Title : Sussex Archaeological Collections Vol. 138 (2000)
    Author : Sussex Archaeological Society
    Publisher : Sussex Archaeological Society
    ISBN : 0143-8204  (ISSN)
    Comments : Includes "A medieval saltern found at Bramber"
    Pub. date and edition : 2001
    Added by (name or email) : Andy Horton
     
     
     

    'Meet the Ancestors' on BBC2 (23 January 2001) showed a practical demonstration from Bourton-on-the Water, Glos., of how brine was put into a clay pot and boiled off to reveal the crystaline salt.

    Regards
    Ray Hamblett
    EMail:ray.hamblett1@ntlworld.com

    Also of interest may be Mark Gardiner's own trial excavation in the 1990's of
    newly-discovered standing earthworks of saltern mounds In Upper Beeding and
    Pre-Construct Archaeology's excavation of a medieval saltern mound at
    Millfields, Bramber- several phases of occupation (report submitted to SAC).
    Copies of interim reports on both sites are in the WSCC SMR. Earlier in the
    1990s, a trial excavation of a recorded saltern mound at Coombes yielded rather
    disappointing results.

    John Mills

    Please respond to sussexpast@egroups.com

    To:   "INTERNET:sussexpast@egroups.com" <sussexpast@egroups.com>
    cc:    (bcc: John Mills/PL/WSCC)

    Subject:  [sussexpast] Salt-working


    An evaluation carried out by Archaeology South-East at New Monks Farm uncovered evidence of salt-working activity associated with two partially surviving mounds (both with make-up in situ to a height of 300mm despite extensive plough truncation). Pottery dated the use of one of them to the 12th -14th centuries.

      Published in Medieval Archaeology Volume XLVI (2002) p.210
      Information also available at WSCC Planning Department (Archaeology Section)

      Simon Stevens