Brine was collected from natural springs in the salt towns. In Nantwich, there were systems of wooden gulleys for the brine to run along to the “wych houses”. Salt ships were also used in that town. Though they were called ships by the medieval salt workers, these were essentially hollowed out tree trunks which were used as brine cisterns. The advantage of using a salt ship would seem to be that impurities would settle out and there could be some slow evaporation and therefore possible concentration of the brine prior to boiling. Four salt ships have so far been discovered in that town and an example can be seen at Nantwich Museum along with associated finds from the excavation.

The brine was then boiled in lead pans over a wood fire to evaporate the water and leave the salt behind. A medieval lead pan along with wooden scoop and rake can be seen displayed in Northwich’s Salt Museum at Weaver Hall. Blood and eggs were sometimes added to the brine in the pan to form a froth and trap the marl dust found in Cheshire brine which could then be skimmed off.

In 1348 the Black Death reached Cheshire. This terrible disease killed almost half the people in England. As such the demand for salt halved. Although peasants in other parts of the country found their labour in demand after the Black Death, salt boilers in Cheshire were worse off without the market for their produce.

In medieval Cheshire, salt boilings were only allowed between specific dates. This was probably to safeguard supplies of brine and wood fuel and to control trade. Tolls were paid for each load of salt carried away from the salt houses. As people may have tried to take away an excessive load, there was a fine of to be paid if a horse collapsed or a cart axle broke within two-and-a-half miles of the salt towns, (the fine was 2 shillings in 1086). A system of salt ways became firmly established in the late medieval period, to move Cheshire’s important commodity into Lancashire and across the Pennines to Yorkshire. Traces of these routes can be seen in place names such as Saltersway and Saltersford.

Many of the salt producing “wych houses” of Cheshire were in the ownership of local religious houses. When the Dissolution of the Monasteries came about these ownership rights were sold off to entrepreneurs who made considerable wealth from them. The salt industry itself was unaffected and continued to grow in importance.