Out and About is a popular feature in Group Travel Organiser magazine, where we share the places, trips and sights the editorial team have recently experienced, and believe will be of interest to others organising group travel.
We’ve just begun blogging reports on our activities to make them available to a wider audience online with more pictures and live links to further information and contacts of help to GTOs.
‘Salt is something in everyday use and in Roman times it was thought to be so important that it was often given to soldiers as part of their pay – and this is where the word salary comes from! This is just one of the facts I discovered at The Lion Salt Works just outside of Northwich in Cheshire, which I visited with a friend in early June,’ says GTO editor Val Baynton.
‘We were taken round the historic site by Fiona Young from Marketing Cheshire whose enthusiasm for the attraction is shared by the volunteers we met during the tour. She explained how salt was produced by evaporating it from brine pumped from the ground via bore holes and how the Cheshire plain with its many salt deposits is a legacy of the shallow salt marshes that formed during the Triassic period c.220 million years ago.
‘The Lion Salt Works is one of just four open-pan salt making sites remaining in the world and it is a Scheduled Ancient Monument – the same status as sites such as Stonehenge and Hadrian’s Wall. Production of salt ended here in 1986, and the late Victorian buildings, including huge brick and wooden pan and stove houses, and equipment such as cast iron salt pans and the original steam engine rapidly deteriorated.
‘It was only after a lengthy campaign by the Lion Salt Works Trust and the local council, and with funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund that the buildings were eventually restored and the site developed for visitors. It re-opened as a museum in 2015 and includes a Butterfly Garden with an important Buddleia collection and a picnic and play area.
‘The tour takes in the huge salt pans and the old buildings, there are interactive displays and an innovative light and sound show, while social history and environmental issues are explained as you go round. The works location right by the Trent and Mersey Canal enabled the cheap transport of coal in to fire the furnace and the mined salt away to Liverpool and the world, so visitors can arrive by narrow boat today!
‘Self-guided tours are available or groups can book a guide for a more in-depth visit, there is also a very pleasant large room, overlooking the grounds, that could be booked for a group event. Just along the canal is the Anderton Boat Lift, which we also visited, and you can read about this in the August issue of GTO magazine.’
Val would like to thank Fiona Young from Marketing Cheshire, and the team at the Lion Saltworks for enabling such an enjoyable and informative visit.
For more information on group visits – including guided tours – you can visit the Lion Saltworks’ website.
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