In these days of' mass refrigeration and freeze drying, it is easy to underestimate the problems our ancestors must have faced in trying to keep their food fresh and edible, particularly meat and fish. One method they had of' preserving these foods was by rubbing them with salt or immersing them in a brine solution. The age-old industry of salt-gathering was once every common around our coasts, usually in estuaries or creeks where areas of flat marshland could accommodate the large shallow pans in which the sea water was collected.
The process of reducing the volume of water by evaporation until it was ready for boiling was a lengthy one. Perhaps the best eve-witness description of the working of the salterns as they were called, comes from the pen of Celia Fiennes, an enterprising gentlewoman with strong Hampshire connections. Between I682 and 1 702 she made numerous journeys on horseback around the country making observations on the manners, customs and industries of the time. She watched with deep interest the salt-worker's of Lymington going about their business.
She wrote: 'The sea water they draw into trenches and so into several ponds that are secured in the bottom to retain it and it stands for the Sun to exhale the watry fresh part of it and if it prove a dry summer they make the Best and most salt for the rain spoyles the ponds by weakening the Salt. When they think its fit to boyle they draw off the water from the ponds by pipes which conveys into a house full of large square iron and copper panns, they are shallow but they are a yard or two if not more square. These are fixt in rowes one by another, it may be twenty on a side in a house under which is the furnace that burns fiercely to keep these panns boiling apace. and as it candy's apace about the edges or bottom so they shovel it up and fill it in great Baskets and so the thinner part runs through the moulds they set to catch it which they call Salt Cakes: the rest in the Baskets drye and is very good salt.
It does not require much effort of imagination to relocate this busy scene to) the shores of Fareham Creek. There are plenty of' clues on the map to help us locate the sites where the salt makers pursued their ancient trade. Salterns Lane, winding off' from the eastern side of the A32 road to Gosport leads down to) the former Salterns Ouay. In the southeast corner of the creek are the former Cams salt marshes. At Hillhead, the name Salt Lane is another clear indication of the existence of salt works in past centuries. To judge from the Domesday records, the most valuable of' the many saltings in the Fareham area was that of Boarhunt Manor, which centuries ago extended as far as the shores of Cams Bay. An early map shows a salting is shown on the sand bar at Hill Head, but there were probably others in the haven before the sealock was built.The early salt workers left few clues as to the uses, other than domestic, to which their produce was put. But the navy required vast quantities of' salt for the pork, beef, and mutton supplied to ships to the line. This requirement continued until well into the I9th century until canning processes were perfected. The Admiralty had a large victualling department at Portsmouth that was transferred to Gosport in the early 1800s. It is not unreasonable to suppose that in earlier centuries the enterprising salt men of Fareham might have sold the produce of their salterns to the Admiralty's victualling departments in Portsmouth harbour. Fareham's salt industry died out more than a century ago. It had always been subjected to punitive taxes by successive governments. The salt tax began to bite into the salt men's profits during William III's reign 1689-1702 and by the time of the Napoleonic wars it had risen to 15 shillings a bushel. Another important factor in the decline of the industry was the cost of carting the huge amounts of coal needed for the boiling process All that remains today of this very ancient craft are those evocative place-names on our local maps. Arguably, the most distinguished person to be associated with Fareham's industrial past.
Gosort history site