Llangollen (Part 3)

You may remember I went on a two day break to Llangollen a while ago. Although I’ve done a couple of posts already on the trip (4.9.13 & 18.9.13) there is more to report on so here’s instalment no.3.

Let’s start with a view from the outside decking area of the Royal Hotel looking back towards the bridge.

The Royal Hotel was originally called the King’s Head and after a certain Princess Victoria stayed there in 1832 it was renamed The King’s Head and Royal. (Remember she came to the throne in 1837.) Another famous guest was physicist & chemist Michael Faraday who stayed there in 1819. Well if it was good enough for Faraday it was good enough me!

Just along the road from The Royal is The Hand Hotel and it can boast Robert Browning & his sister as guests in 1866.

We set off to the station just the other side of the bridge as there was a bit of a steam festival thing going on. There were trips on the steam trains but we didn’t have time so we just looked round the stalls and exhibition stuff to do with the restoration of the line. The project began in 1975 to get track re-laid and into a condition in which trains would actually be able to run again. Today the volunteer-run railway has about 8 miles of restored track.

As we entered the station we saw this metal sign

Note the proud boast at the bottom. The chocolate was apparently eaten by the Queen, the King & His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales. Not bad eh? This year one of these signs in a worse condition to the one in my photo was sold for £150! Now in case you’re wondering, the chocolate making business was begun by a Quaker, Joseph Fry, in the mid 18^th century. The Fry’s Chocolate Cream bar (which many of you will know) began in 1866 – it will be 150 years old a few years from now in 2016; Fry’s Turkish Delight began in 1914 and so will celebrate its centenary next year. That’s a long time for any chocolate bar to last! It’s also believed that Fry was responsible for producing the first chocolate Easter Egg in 1873. My favourite used to be the Fry’s Chocolate Mint Cream version (the green one).

Sadly however the Fry company (later owned by Cadbury which was later still taken over by Kraft) closed its Keynsham factory in 2011 and moved production to Poland with the loss of 500 jobs.

Interestingly Quakers were responsible for the founding of many of the household names we know today: Barclays Bank, Lloyds Bank, Clark’s shoes (Cyrus Clark), Bryant & May matches, Huntley & Palmer’s Biscuits (Thomas Huntley), Carr’s Biscuits, Rowntree’s (Joseph Rowntree), Cadbury’s (George Cadbury). Cadbury, as you will know, actually built a village for his workers (Bourneville, a few miles south of Birmingham city centre). The Quakers’ ethical stance on the way they did business was appreciated by the consumers of the finished products and also the producers of the raw materials used in the manufacturing process.

Bizarrely the Quaker Oats company, founded in 1901, has “no formal ties” with the religious organisation of the same name. It just used the picture of a man dressed in clothes a Quaker would have worn on its packaging to give an impression of honesty & integrity. If you didn’t know just how healthy these oats are check out this advert from a long time ago:

http://library.buffalo.edu/pan-am/img/quaker_oats.jpg

More protein than wheat foods & more carbohydrates than meat – so now you know.

Here are a couple of signs.

Bird’s custard powder, first produced in 1837, contains no eggs; the reason – Alfred Bird’s wife was allergic to eggs. It appears from the sign that the gentleman bending down is not asking for the lady’s hand in marriage but for her to make him some Bird’s Custard (see the little box on the floor).

In the second sign underneath see how the Great Western Railway were trying to sell trips & holidays to Cornwall. Yep that’s right because Cornwall has a similar shape. What! You don’t need to go to Italy because we’ve got some land that’s the same shape. Right – what else would you go to Italy for except to see the shape? Oh and Cornwall apparently has a similar climate & similar natural beauties. However I’m thinking that Italy might just win on the Roman ruins front.

Could I just say that we have cancelled our holiday to Italy this year – you’ll never guess where we’re going instead!!

In the post from 18.9.13 I mentioned we had eaten at a converted corn mill; it was originally started by the monks who the abbey, in 1201, a few miles up the road. This is the view from the pedestrian bridge over the tracks at the station and looking across the river.

Here’s one of the steam engines

I saw a metal plate on the front showing it was built in Brighton in 1953 so 60 years old this year.

And inside the cab part where the driver & stoker stand.

From the station we made our way over to the museum. It is only small but I tell you what they pack a load of info into it. There were lots of story boards and it’s well worth a visit.

Here’s an exhibit

You can see the Museum is on two floors and circular.

Couldn’t resist a silly picture with the twisty glass mirrors

Llangollen is a great place to visit and we’d enjoyed our two days thus far. If you get chance to go you have to visit the bookshop (Café & Books) over the café in Castle Street. It’s massive and once you’ve looked at the shelves alongside the staircase and across the top you go downstairs and the shelves just seem to go on for ever. There are literally thousands & thousands of books and they kept us busy for quite a while – and of course we bought some.

After the museum it was time to start heading home but we had one more stop on the way back which we’ll do next week.

Day trip 5 – Wolferton

Morning all. Welcome to another guest post from the fabulous Rambler5319. Enjoy!

This is another of my days out from the holiday. This time it was to Wolferton. Never heard of it? I think most people won’t have. The village is built round a kind of U-shape made by the main route through. The approach roads to the U-shape actually form a X shape (check the satellite view on Google). Imagine the bottom of the X joining the top of the U and you’ve got the idea. You can drive down by turning off the main A149 and just keep on the same road and it will bring you back via the U and the other part of the X-shape to the A149 a little further along.

Why is the place interesting? Well primarily because this is the place which was used by the Royal Family when they travelled by train from London to their Sandringham House about 3 miles away. Apparently Queen Victoria’s son (the future) Edward VII had asked her to buy Sandringham House for himself and his bride to be, Alexandra; and she did! Within 2 years though he decided it wasn’t big enough so had it enlarged.

Wolferton Station is where the train stopped and the Royals and their guests would be picked up either by horse & carriage in the early days or by motorised transport in later years. Those guests included crowned heads of state from many foreign countries. As I walked along the platform I realised I was walking where Queen Victoria had walked (Prince Albert had died the year before it opened). Rasputin also visited on his way to see King George V but the king wouldn’t see him and told the station master to send him away! Other visitors over the years who have walked this platform include: the King & Queen of Denmark, the King & Queen of Portugal, the Emperor & Empress of Germany, the King & Queen of Spain. Just a year after it opened Edward VII (Prince of Wales) married Princess Alexandra (of Denmark) at Windsor and they travelled to Sandringham via the station at Wolferton. When it underwent a reconstruction in 1898, amongst other things, royal waiting rooms were added so that they (and any guests) had somewhere to sit in case transport was delayed getting to them or they needed somewhere to wait for a train if they were leaving the area. (The station closed in May 1969; it had been open for 107 years.)

Around the time the station opened there were about 30 houses in the village and a population of 179. It appears to have peaked around the time of the 1901 Census at 234 (and 46 houses) and is presently around 100 according to a recent press report.

After the station closed the property was split up and sold off as private housing. Initially it was run as a museum but proved financially unviable. It was sold again and the man who now owns the west side platform turned it into a restoration project. It is brilliant! You get a real sense of how much time & effort he’s put into it – and it shows. The place is spotless and a pleasure to walk around.

Just along from this is the way in. Note the small sign on the post saying it’s ok to go in and walk around.

Just as I was taking the pics outside a guy had just come out of the gate and stopped to talk to me. Turns out he actually worked on the line back in the 1960s. It was great hearing about the “old days” when he was a guard and especially since the whole line has gone; he really brought the place to life with his stories of how things were.

And behind over the road was the signal box also now in private hands.

Here’s where the track used to be between the platforms.

You can see that the platform on the right belongs to a different owner and is fenced off. Would have been nice to see the whole station refurbished but you have to accept that not everyone likes people walking through their property.

Here is something interesting. In case of fire there were five buckets of water hanging on the wall. The notice, if you enlarge it, simply says that they must be kept full of water and used only in case of fire. I’m thinking you couldn’t do much with 5 buckets but I suppose it depends how big the fire is.

And a luggage trolley

And a bike

A little reminder of how we used to fill our cars with petrol. The pump of course was operated by the garage owner not by you. Self-service petrol was still some way in the future.

Check this next sign out.

A car cost 1/- (5p) for a day; for a week 2/6 (12.5p); for a month 7/6 (37.5p); for 3 months 20/- (£1); and for 1 year £3. Yes a year’s parking, all day, for £3! Pity it was undated but clearly from a long time ago.

Next is a list of all the companies who have operated trains which called at Wolferton (on the King’s Lynn to Hunstanton line). Check out the note underneath that list – the guy responsible for getting the railway built (Henry LeStrange) died just a couple of months before it opened in Oct 1862.

Next are a few signs of railway memorabilia.

Note on this display the sign under the Ladies Room – well thought out that one.

On this next one I hope you can see the long narrow sign in the centre. Failure to shut and fasten the gate could cost you a fine of 40 shillings (£2). Now remember the car parking fees. It was only £3 for a year’s parking

Even in a fairly small village station like this the Station Master has his own office.

But there’s more. A short way from the station was the station master’s house – a substantial detached property! This was definitely THE job to have round here in days gone by. One Master who retired in 1925 had done 40 years in the post!

On the way out of the village I saw the sign. It was donated by George V in 1912. If you enlarge the post in the area to the bottom left of the horizontal bar with “Church” on you can just about see that info. The main part of the sign illustrates the Norse legend of Tyr (a god of war, son of Odin). I’m not sure why. Anyway the story goes that the gods decided to restrain the wolf (Fenrir) by using shackles. However the wolf was too strong and broke every one. Cutting a long story short the gods then got a special shackle of rope made from rather odd ingredients. Fenrir said he would only allow them to bind him if one of them would put their hand in his mouth. Tyr volunteered and after the wolf was bound and couldn’t break free he bit off Tyr’s right hand (although some sources don’t specify which hand). However on the village sign Tyr is shown putting what appears to be his left hand in the wolf’s mouth; so the beast was tamed, but Tyr lost his hand! I’m not sure what the other elements of the sign represent. Interestingly the Anglo Saxons spelling of Tyr’s name is Tiw which led to Tiwesdaeg, and hence to our modern Tuesday.

The station has been owned by Richard Brown since 2000 and he’s done a fantastic job of renovation & restoration. It’s really worth a visit.

Oh and as well as my photos I picked up a couple of bookmarks (free of charge).

The Lion Saltworks and Anderton Boat Lift

My regular guest blogger is posting on Thursday this week, a day later than usual. Enjoy it!

This week’s post finds me in a village in the Cheshire countryside just NE of the town of Northwich. What am I doing here? Well, at the end of last week’s blog you remember the guy at the Museum told me about a site visit with a free guided tour in a nearby village; and so off I went, just 2 miles across town, to the Lion Salt Works in Marston. (Its population was in 1801-284, 1901-878 & 1951-729.) It is interesting to remember that the discovery of salt in the area was accidental; people in the 17th cent were digging to try and find coal and came across the salt.

Here’s a view of the works from the opposite bank of the canal. You can see how handy it was for collections and deliveries to the site. Canals were of course the highways of their day. They were the new form of transport enabling importers and exporters to get their goods to or from a port and others who just needed to move goods to market where there were no decent road connections.

Thanks to Chris Allen for photo from Geograph site. Photo used with permission under Creative Commons Licence (details below, each of which can be copied/pasted into browser to see relevant info):
Licence details: “http://creativecommons.org/ns#”
Picture: “http://s0.geograph.org.uk/photos/63/79/637954_1bcb2934.jpg”
Owner: “http://www.geograph.org.uk/profile/4264”
Usage permission: “http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/”

And next is an aerial view; the renovation scaffolding had not arrived at this point. Thanks to Edward Robinson for the pic from the Geograph site (taken in Oct 2011). Photo used with permission under Creative Commons Licence (details below, each of which can be copied/pasted into browser to see relevant info):
Licence details: “http://creativecommons.org/ns#”
Picture: “http://s0.geograph.org.uk/geophotos/02/81/57/2815732_839ef24f.jpg”
Owner: ” http://www.geograph.org.uk/profile/75769″
Usage permission: “http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0”

I had to use someone else’s aerial view as my private helicopter was in the garage being repaired and my pilot was on holiday! It was his turn on the rota (or should that be rotor….haha).

The site was owned and operated by the Thompson Family from 1894 to its closure in 1986: this was due to a civil war in the country where most of its exports went – Nigeria. (It was the last open pan salt works in the county; it is the only surviving Victorian salt works in the UK; and although not actually working, the structure is one of only 3 surviving open pan salt works in the whole world!).

The poor quality of the upper structure, made from mainly wood, corrugated iron & asbestos, was due to its owners believing it would be just a temporary building until the mine or brine was exhausted and they would move on.
It made the BBC’s “Restoration” programme but didn’t get enough voted to progress finishing in second position on the day. However a campaign, which has run for many years to turn the site into a proper visitor centre, has eventually resulted in an £8 million refurbishment programme; it is hoped that work, just started, will be completed by Spring 2014.

Our archaeologist guide Chris was ready and waiting with a couple of other visitors as I arrived; in the next 10 minutes the group expanded to about 12. I hope I have remembered his info correctly – any mistakes are mine as they say in the publishing world.

Open pan means basically you construct a large rectangular shaped metal tank, fill it with brine pumped from underground, and put a heat source (originally coal, later oil) underneath it; as the brine evaporates a salt precipitate is formed which is then scooped out. The one we were able to see measured about 30ft x 20ft (9.1m x 6.1m). The strength of heat is what determines the quality of salt produced: hotter equals better quality. It was said that it needed 1 ton of coal to produce 2 tons of salt.

The Lion Salt Works, as you saw in the pic, is located right next to the Trent & Mersey Canal which runs 93 miles from Derby through to near Runcorn. That canal also serviced exports from the Potteries (Stoke-on-Trent area) and Josiah Wedgewood (yes ‘the’ JW himself) cut the first piece of turf (in 1766) to start the construction of the canal. It also brought coal to the Lion and took salt exports away.

The big barrier to the smooth operation through to the ports on the River Mersey was the difference in height which had to be overcome at Anderton just north of Northwich itself: about 50ft (15.24m). It was solved by building a boat lift to raise and lower the narrowboats with their cargoes. It was closed for a long time because of corrosion caused by the very cargoes of salt which it was built to move. After a £7 million refurbishment it is now open and working although the salt trade has gone. It’s well worth a visit as there are only two such structures in the UK – this one and a far newer one in Scotland called The Falkirk Wheel.

Here’s a view from a boat on the River Weaver approaching the lift. Thanks to Dave & Ann-Marie of the blog Becoming Listless for the excellent action photos. Their blog, about their narrowboat travels, is definitely worth a visit: (http://becominglistless.blogspot.co.uk/).

The Lift, built in 1875, has two large tanks both of which can take two full length (72ft/22m) narrowboats (side by side) – see the space beside the one in the bottom left side of the lift in the photo. The tanks are called caissons and each weighs 252 tons when full of water.

Can you answer this question: if there were 2 boats, in one caisson, each weighing 24 tons how much would the total weight in the caisson be? Think carefully! Can only offer a (paper) gold star to the first correct reply but they’re quite rare in the Rambler’s Blogworld.

And here’s a view from the boat when it’s actually in the lift looking back the way it’s just come.

In the distance you can see the concrete buildings of an industrial site called the Winnington Works. These chemical works were built by the Brunner Mond Company in 1873 – remember the wavy lines in the Northwich Town Crest at the beginning of last week’s blog. (Interestingly, Brunner was born and raised in Everton in Liverpool.)

Also interesting is that, at these very works back in the 1930s, a substance called polyethylene (or PE) was discovered just by accident; we know it by its more common name of polythene. One of its uses is in the manufacture of – what currently seems to be public enemy no.1 – the ubiquitous plastic carrier bag. So now you know, that’s where the bag that has gone all over the world started its life.

But I digress. Back to the Lion Salt Works.

I had hoped to show you a picture showing a plan of the site but have been unable to obtain copyright permission. (There’s one in Google Images if you’re interested.

Because of all the scaffolding and areas still being made safe we were somewhat restricted in the areas we could see but we did go inside pan house 4 and the small Exhibition Centre. The rest of the talk took place outside looking across the site towards the canal at the top of the plan.
Here are a couple of views of the side of panhouse 4.

And here’s a close up of the chimney on the left of the previous pic<

Here’s a view of one end of the saltpan inside panhouse 4.

And where the furnace was fed with coal:

When the crystals were scraped out of the saltpan they were put into receptacles (salt moulds) originally cone shaped but later a tapered rectangular shape and packed down. Once set, the blocks would be tipped out and then lifted through a space in the roof to an area just above head height where they would be stored to dry out using the heat rising from below.

I had hoped to use 3 or 4 pics from a booklet produced by the Lion Salt Works Trust but unfortunately after many attempts by phone (including leaving messages) and an email using an address from the site which was returned as “unknown recipient” this has not been possible. I will have to just direct you to a YouTube vid (sound not that good, seems to be too fast but it shows the place and some old stuff). If you have a couple of minutes watch this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vk69Dij9oUI

Apparently elm was the wood used for the salt moulds. They had a cricket bat shaped piece of wood called a ‘mundling stick’ which was used to bash the crystals down into the moulds to make the lump as heavy as possible. Long handled perforated ladles (‘skimmers’) were used to gather the crystals and allow surplus liquid to drain off back into the pan. After tipping the blocks out of the moulds the next job would be to lift them up over head height into the drying area on the floor above.

Halfway through the tour a visitor arrived, from a nearby village, who told us (and our guide) that he had actually worked at the site in the 1960s doing various jobs including the one just mentioned lifting the blocks to the floor above. His info was great as we were literally hearing it from the horse’s mouth. He told us that working there in the heat caused a number of health issues from breathing in the fumes coming off the saltpans and burns from hot surfaces.

He also showed us his finger tips where you could see he had no fingerprints – they were burnt off he said through the work there! Yeah, I know what you’re all thinking….. because I did too. (Had he thought of a safe job…. Perhaps at my local bank?)

The Salt Union, which is still in business today, was formed in 1888 by the amalgamation of over 60 salt producers to try and address the problem of overproduction which was bringing the price down to uneconomic levels. (The influence of cheap Cheshire salt was felt across the country. The decline and closure of salt workings was reported in town histories for places as diverse as Lymington on England’s south coast and the county of Fife in Scotland!) Today technology has moved on of course and the production figures, by this conglomerate, are staggering compared with earlier times. Here are some statistics from their own publicity. Check out how far their tunnels go in the last paragraph.

It’s also worth remembering that, in our ecologically more sensitive times, some of the excesses of the salt mining companies which caused land & road subsidence at various times have got a new life. For instance Neumann’s Flashes, an area of subsidence just up the road from the Lion Salt Works, has been turned into a Community Woodland with a lake and numerous wildfowl species. (My 1908 OS Map puts the lake size at 17 acres – that’s about 10 times the size of Liverpool FC’s Football Pitch!) Keep your eyes open there and, amongst other species, you might catch a glimpse of the rare “dingy skipper butterfly”!

The Census records for 1871 tell us that Henry Neumann, who had owned the mine in that area, had retired by 1871: that means prior to his 60th birthday. It possible to gain some idea of his financial success as a salt producer from the census records for that year: at his home are four family members along with a butler, domestic servant, house maid & kitchen maid. Records for the 1881 & 1891 continue to show him with a staff of at least 4 servants. Salt was very good to Henry. Don’t know about you but I wouldn’t mind retiring with such a set up as that.

Anyway that was it. Overall I’d learned a lot about salt, how it was produced & some of the disasters over-mining caused. It was certainly a lot more interesting than I’d expected. Time to set off for home. The Lion Salt Works free tour had been an unexpected bonus on my trip and very enjoyable. Hope the guys doing the renovation work will not meet too many problems in trying to preserve the structure and build the new stuff. Roll on Spring 2014 and the new Visitor Centre.

Salt does have other more unusual uses: have a look at this clip showing a guy producing a picture using salt! It is quite good.

http://www.wimp.com/artsalt/

And finally don’t forget to have a go at the quiz question about the boat lift. If you can’t work it out try a guess. Answer will be given next week if no-one gets it by then.

Northwich Salt Museum, Part 2

Hello again. It’s Wednesday and time for my guest blogger to take over.

A couple of weeks ago I visited the Weaver Hall Museum in Northwich (Cheshire) as a follow up to the post NaCl (1.8.12). I covered the first part of it in last week’s post – “A Trip Back In Time To The Workhouse”. This one is to cover the salt side. Here’s my salt collection. (The tray map may be familiar to JumeirahJames).

Before we start, let’s just have a think on something here. You know the chemical formula for salt is NaCl: that means it’s made up from ions of sodium (Na) and chlorine (Cl).

Not that interesting perhaps except if you think back to your school days. Remember those chemistry lab demonstrations that the teacher did to show you the properties of certain elements? Sodium is a metal which reacts violently with water and chlorine is a sickly smelling greenish-yellow gas and yet together they produce a substance which everyone in the world eats, in some form or other and it dissolves easily in water. Strange, hey?

Here is the coat of arms for Northwich with the Latin phrase I mentioned last time, Sal Est Vita (salt is life).

As an aside, note the symbol on the right of the three flags on the golden ship at the top. The blue & white wavy lines were from the Mond family crest and believed to be the inspiration for the current ICI logo which is so familiar to us today particularly on their tins of paint. (It has two wavy lines with the letters ICI above. ICI was formed by 4 companies in 1926 one of which was Brunner Mond.)

I mentioned the brilliant book by Mark Kurlansky (Salt – A World History) last time; as I entered the museum there on the shelf was the paperback version of the very book. Other subject related books and pamphlets were available and I ended up with 3 of the latter.

The first display boards covered salt production dating back to the Bronze Age and up to the present day. I mentioned Roman involvement and how important access to salt was for their empire building.

Rome itself was located near a source of salt and had a street named Via Salaria (salt road) which was used to transport salt to the city; it also served the salt trade, eventually stretching 150 miles (242kms) north-east to the Adriatic Sea. In Roman times a man in love was called a salax meaning ‘in a salted state’; the ablative case of the noun is salaci which is the root of our word salacious (meaning lustful, lecherous).

Remember the refs in the Bible mentioned in the previous post – here are a couple more:

1. In the book of Leviticus: “And every offering of your grain offering you shall season with salt; you shall not allow the salt of the covenant of your God to be lacking from your grain offering. With all your offering you shall offer salt” (Lev 2:13). Salt was an essential part of worship.

2. In the book of Ezra: “Now because we eat the salt of the palace and it is not fitting for us to witness the king’s dishonour, therefore we send and inform the king, …..” (from ESV version of Bible, 2002) This verse was part of a letter written to King Artaxerxes (ruler of Persia (Iran) from 465BC-424BC).

The inference here is that, for the writers, eating salt (of the palace) meant they were being loyal, law-abiding subjects as opposed to those who ate salt ‘not from the king’s palace’ and therefore not paying the tax included in the price.

At various times through history, rulers around the world have made salt production and its sale a monopoly to generate tax revenue for their governments. You have only to think of the population of the world, presently around the 7 billion mark, to realise the potential in terms of revenue for private companies or governments if they’re involved in a state monopoly.

In 2011, the top four salt producing countries (in order: China, USA, Germany, India) accounted for just over 50% of the world total; UK is 13th in the list producing just 2% of the world total.

Indian salt workers are not well paid and feel trapped in their situation. Saltpan workers in the state of Gujurat which produces 70% of (4th placed) India’s total, say this: “There is a saying here that if you’re a saltpan worker, you have three ways to die: first gangrene, second TB (tuberculosis) or third blindness. In every house, people die this way.” It is not a healthy occupation! Life expectancy is only 50-60 yrs.

The Daily Telegraph newspaper reported in Feb 2010 that, after death, certain parts of the bodies (hands & feet) of Indian saltpan workers are difficult to burn when they are cremated because of the salt content.

A saltpan, in this case, is not a pan like the ones we use in our kitchens; it is a rectangular bed or beds grouped together containing brine which, with heat from the sun, begins to evaporate and form crystals which are then collected by the workers.

Apologies for the digression – back to the Museum and a bit of geology in order to understand why the area became such a centre for salt production.

Northwich’s salt deposits lie in two layers: one is approx 150ft (40m) below the surface, called the Top Bed, and the other 330ft (100m), called the Bottom Bed. Rainwater sinks into the ground and when it reaches the rock salt deposits begins to form brine & eventually brine streams. The deeper the water goes the more saturated (concentrated) it becomes. This water can be as much as 8 times more salty that ordinary sea water – not the sort of water swim in for sure!

Here’s an example of the different grades of salt produced and their uses.

In Victorian days salt mining, along with many other industrial processes, was very labour intensive.

Here’s a picture of a mine worker and the tub the salt was collected in which was then pushed out on rails. Note the photo in the background: the guys working on the mound are all stripped to the waist as is the man pushing the rail tub. There are three men stood by the tubs in the black & white pic who have white shirts and ties on so it must have been a posed photo with above ground workers at the mine or maybe some local bigwigs on a publicity shoot.

In the next photo you can see some of the effects of salt mining in the local area. The bottom left photo is rather extraordinary. It demonstrates that the Victorians had been mining far too much salt from the Top Bed without leaving sufficient support to prevent sinkage. Despite the angle the building is leaning at the actual brickwork didn’t give way and the whole building just tilted over. Amazing!

The next pic is proof that the ‘pun headline’ favoured by our (UK) tabloid newspapers is not a new invention.

Do you see what they did there with the brand name? Substituted Middle Witch for Middlewich (the town’s name) which is about 7 miles SE of Northwich and a big salt producing area. Remember the “-wich” ending for a place name often means it was a place where salt was produced.

I’m not quite sure how you make salt go “twice as far” other than by halving the amount you use. Maybe what they mean is that you got twice as much for the same price or am I missing something? Also, don’t forget the one penny referred to was in the days when an English pound had 240 of them (not the 100 we have today).

As I reached the end of the tour round the museum I came back to the reception area where the goodies were on display. Apart from the 3 pamphlets I couldn’t resist getting an actual piece of rock salt and here it is.

And of course I had to wet my finger and touch it and then taste – rather salty I thought. No surprise there then & probably 0/10 for originality! I wasn’t the first and I won’t be the last. At the end of my visit the curator told me of a (free) guided tour at another salt related site not far from the museum. As this has rambled on longer than I expected I’ll do that one next week.

Searching for Agatha

Yesterday I thought I’d go for another walk. My day in Highgate was so lovely, I thought I’d try another one. I decided to go to Newlands Corner, near Guildford and potter about in the countryside for a while.

The area is linked to Agatha Christie’s ‘death’ because this is where thousands of people met up to scour the area looking for her body. Her husband had apparently told her one day that he was off to spend the weekend with their nanny! (There’s bound to be a lot more to it than that, but anyway, that’s what we know.) She flipped, obviously. In the middle of the night she got in the car, leaving the dog and baby at home, and sped away into the night. Her car was found at Chalk Pit, a little further down from where I started my walk but Agatha was nowhere to be seen. Stories covered every newspaper. The husband came under scrutiny and became the murder suspect. People searched the countryside and woods for her body. Ten days later she was found, chilling in a little B&B in Harrogate. As you do.

Anyway, yesterday I thought I’d go on a little Agatha search of my own through the woods. It started near a beautiful organic vineyard…

….and my path followed it along it’s edge until I passed another spot with some mysterious history.

The Silent Pool is strangely silent, as the name suggests. The water is totally still and clear. You’d expect, if water was that still, that it would be stagnant, or growing a bit of algae. But this water is clear.

You can see where the water line is, from the reflection of the stick, but the grass and ground underneath are still really visible.

Anyway, the story goes like this. A girl and her brother were bathing in the Silent Pool when King John rode past on his horse. He decided to take the girl with him, but she was not so easily captured. Her and the brother fought against him, waded too far and drowned together. Since then, a ghostly white figure is seen at night bathing in the moonlight. *cue scary X-Files music*

As it was the daytime, I saw no bathing ghosts and kept on my walk, which became a huge steep hill within minutes. I pretended not to be panting like mad and powered on up, every minute wondering when it would stop rising. It finally levelled out and I was deep in a thick forest.

It started raining very lightly but I just ignored it. The forest walk went on for a good hour or so, lovely dense trees and one little windy path through them that I followed unquestioningly. I wish I had questioned it more, actually, because not knowing where I was became a bit of a theme for the day…! But in going slightly off route, I stumbled across some amazing little things. Like this statue of a man with a hook for an arm and his dog…

… some chickens, some grand houses that were all but hidden in the foliage until you passed directly in front of the gate and a quiet little pub, where it became impossible to ignore the rain, which had by now made me a little damp and cold all over. I also realised that I was in Gomshall, which is not Shere, where I was supposed to be. It was Gomshall. The wrong place. Gomshall wasn’t even on my Newland’s Corner map. And I hadn’t gone under the A25 like I was supposed to have. I pretended all was fine and I sat in the warmth of the country pub, munching away on a freshly baked baguette which may be the best bread I’ve ever eaten. It was still warm and so soft.

As I gazed forlornly out of the window, watching the rain get heavier, the man behind the bar warned me, “You’re no good waiting for it to get better, it won’t. This is it for the day now.”

“Really?”

“Yup. Where are you trying to get to?”

“Shere.”

“It’s the second on your left, about a half an hour walk away.”

I finally admitted it was raining and took my waterproof jacket out of my bag. Like a wearied soldier heading back to the battlefield, I donned my jacket, shouldered my rucksack and headed into the rain to Shere. I was thankful for the waterproof but maybe the jeans weren’t helping matters. It wasn’t a long way to Shere but I figured I should stop for another cup of tea when I got there or I might drown! So I looked…

…and looked….

Well, at least the museum will have something, I guessed. That’s what I’d come into Shere for anyway. I had done my research, I knew the museum was open on a Thursday. Making my way there under the shelter of overhanging trees, I arrived at the door to see this …

… It was 4.30pm…

So I figured it was time to head back to my starting point to finish the walk and head home to dry off. On my way, there was loads of bunting around. Some looked to be leftover Jubilee stuff and some said London 2012 on it. It turns out that next week, the Olympic torch is coming through the area. I’ll just say this, they’d better be bloody open then! I won’t say ‘I hope it doesn’t rain’ because I don’t want to jinx it.

Anyway, the walk back to the beginning/end point was quite pretty, even though the rain fell harder and harder….!

And not once did I see Agatha Christie…. O wait, she was in Harrogate, wasn’t she…?