| Northwich : 1850 |
| Northwich is a township and ancient market town, in the parochial chapelry of Witton, 174 miles NW from London, 20 miles SSW from Manchester, 18 miles ENE from Chester, 11 miles S by E from Warrington, and 2 miles from the Hartford station, on the railway from Liverpool to Birmingham. It is seated at the confluence of the river Dane and the Weaver, and previous to the formation of railways was a great thoroughfare between London and Liverpool, and Manchester and Wales, through Chester. The prefix to the name applies to its local situation, as being the most northern of the "whiches", or salt towns. Camden states that it was called Hellath or Hellu Du, meaning the Black Salt Town; the inhabitants are chiefly employed in the manufacture of this article, and in the dock-yards for the building of flat-boats of a peculiar construction used for conveying salt from this to other places. The streets are narrow and irregular, and many of the houses are of considerable antiquity. The township contains only 6A. 0r. 30p. of land, and in 1841 had 271 houses and 1,368 inhabitants; population in 1801: 1,338; in 1831: 1,481. Rateable value, £7,851 of which the buildings are rated at £4825, and the salt works at £2,252. The great bulk of the population which comprise the town of Northwich, are situated in the chapelry of Witton, Castle Northwich, and leftwich, all suburbs to the town, which together comprise a population of 7,453 souls. The market is held on Friday, when the town presents a busy appearance; corn is sold by sample in a large room at the Crown & Anchor. A spacious market-house was built in 1843, in which the butter, butchers' meat, and other commodities are sold. Fairs are held on April 10th, August 2nd and December 6th. At the Norman Survey, Northwich constituted part of the demesne belonging to the Earldom of Chester. On the termination of the line of Earls, the whole was seized by the Crown, and in the 12th of Richard II, the township was granted to John Holland, Earl of Huntingdon, subsequently created Duke of Exeter. On his attainder, on the first year of Henry IV, the estates were conceded to his son John, who was the second Duke; but on the attainder of Henry Holland, the Crown again obtained possession. Richard III, amongst other valuable gifts, granted this manor to Sir Thomas Stanley; and it continued for many generations in their descendant the Earls of Derby. In 1784, the Earl of Derby sold it, under the authority of an Act of Parliament, to James Mort, Esq. His son Jonadab died in 1799, and bequeathed the estate to Anne, his only sister, wife of Mr Thomas Wakefield, and he sold the manor to Arthur Heywood, Esq., of Liverpool, in whose family it still remains. The lord of the manor holds a Court Lest and Baron at the former of which constables and market lookers are appointed. Near the entrance to the town from Chester is an ancient house, above which rises a garden. consisting of five terraces, one rising progressively above the other. In 1642, this house was conveyed by Sir Humphrey Davenport, Knt., to William Bentley, (MD)., a gentleman of rather eccentric disposition, as he caused his body to be interred at the very summit of the garden, in a summer-house.. It is supposed this garden was the principal fortification thrown up during the great rebellion, by Sir William Brereton, and in the soil, numbers of cannon balls have been found. This town shared largely in the troubles consequent on the Civil Wars. Dr Cowper says:- "Sir William Brereton threw up a strong military post here, which soon greatly harassed the country round, and not only took many prisoners, but plundered several mansions and places in the neighbourhood and brought in great numbers of horses and cattle, as also large quantities of goods and provisions of every kind." On the 10th March, 1642, Sir Thomas Aston marched from Chester to Middlewich, and endeavoured to make that place defensible, and from hence Sir William Brereton was ineffectually attacked by a party of Royalist Dragoons, under Captain Spotswood. He made an attack upon Northwich upon the Royalists on the Sunday following, and the next day advanced again from Northwich, and being backed by the Nantwich forces, stormed the town of Middlewich, and gave Sir Thomas Aston a complete defeat. In December, of the same year, Sir William experienced a complete defeat from the King's forces, recently reinforced from Ireland, and the parish register notices that a garrison of Royalists was then placed here. Sir John Birkenhead, the celebrated author of the first Court newspaper (Mercurius Aulieus), was born here, in 1615. It is conjectured that the salt-springs at Northwich were known to the Romans long before the Christian era. The ancient Britons called the place the "Black Salt Town", a term highly characteristic of Northwich at the present day. In the vicintiy are some of the largest works and most extensive salt mines in the Kingdom. ..... ..there are upwards of thirty firms engaged in the Salt Trade, in the several townships of Northwich, Anderton, Wincham and Winnington, all contiguous to the town of Northwich. Although very often confounded, a salt mine and a salt work are entirely separate and distinct things. All round the town are erected spacious low buildings, where the brine undergoes evaporation in shallow pans or iron; these are salt works, and are covered by a wooden roof, contrived in a peculiar manner, to facilitate the escape of the steam from the salt pans. The appearance they present, with clouds of white vapour issuing from the black wooden covering, and multitudes of half-clad men, stirring the salt and shovelling about the salt--can scarcely be conceived. The heat of the houses is excessive, though the abundant moisture of the air prevents it becoming annoying. The salt-pans are shallow vessels of iron, varying from 40 to 100 feet in length, and from 10 to 30 feet wide, and about a foot and a half in depth, thus exposing an enormous evaporating surface; these spacious cauldrons are each separated from the other by an interval of three or four feet, which forms the pathway for the removal of the salt. The pans are fed by pipes connected with the brine reservoir, the supply being regulated by the amount of evaporation. The heat is supplied by furnaces, which play under each pan, while the many fires of these vast places terminate in tall chimnies. On looking into the pans, they are seen to be in many instances partly filled with a white granular substance lying at the bottom, while a film of the same is continually forming at the top and sinking downward. Many of the pans again are to be seen bubbling and boiling with considerable vehemence, whilst in others the process goes on slowly. It is by this means the various descriptions of salt are manufactured. In making the Stoved, or Lump Salt, as it is called, the brine is brought to a boiling heat (225 degrees Fahrenheit). Crystals of Muriate of Soda are soon formed on the surface; and almost immediately, by the agitation of the brine, subside to the bottom of the pan. The fires are then slackened, and salt is drawn to the sides of the pan with iron rakes. It is then carried in baskets to the pan-house, where it is drained; and afterwards dried in stoves, heated by a continuation of the same flues, which pass under the evaporation pans. In making this salt, the pan is twice filled in the course of twenty-four hours. On the first application of heat, if the brine contains any carbonate of lime, the acid may be observed to quit the lime, and is either thrown to the surface as the ebullition takes place, along with the earthy or feculent contents of the brine, whence it is removed by skimmers, or it subsides to the bottom of the pan, along with the salt first formed, and, with some portion of the sulphate of lime, is raked out in the early part of the process. These two operations are called clearing the pan. Some of the brines scarcely require them at all, and others, only occasionally. The Coarse-Grained Salt is made in a slower manner. The brine being heated to 130 degrees Fahrenheit. The salt formed in this process is somwhat harder than the common salt, and approaches nearer the natural form of the crystal of Muriate of Soda. As salt of this grain is often made by slackening the fires betwixt Saturday and Monday, which allows the crystallization to proceed slowly, it has got the name of "Sunday Salt". The Large grained or Fishing salt is made in a slower manner still. The brine being only heated to 100 degrees Fahrenheit, but is the strongest salt of all. No agitation is produced by the heat on the brine, and the slowness of the evaporation, allows the Muriate of Soda to form in large, nearly cubical crystals; with this heat it takes five or six days to evaporate the water of solution. The brine spring, the ever flowing source of this enormous amount of salt, is found at the depth of about 80 yards from the bed of the river. They are formed, without doubt, simply by springs of water, originally fresh, permeating a vast bed of rock-salt; thus becoming saturated, and rising within a scertain distance of the surface. The brine is pumped to the surface by means of a steam engine, and is conveyed into reservoirs, near the respective works. It is as nearly as possible a saturated solution of Salt. A crystal of salt not being dissolved by it when placed in the liquid, and an egg, which is the simple hydrometer in common use, lying high and dry upon the surface. It has been estimated that every pint of brine contains six ounces of salt; and to make 100 tons of salt, about 60 tons of coals are required. Camden speaks of a brine-well in this neighbourhood, with a stair about it, down which half-naked men went to draw the brine in leathern buckets, and then carried it to the wich-houses. |
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| Church Road, Northwich. All the buildings on the left of the road are gone save one about two-thirds down. The buildings on the 'bend', right, are still shops. |
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