Salt Ways were regular routes followed by salt traders whilst transporting salt from the salt production centres. There are three salt ways running through the research area:
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| Salt Ways |
North
This runs from Croxall, via Measham and probably ends around Bury Camp, Ratby.
Central
This runs from Croxall, via No Mans Heath, Twycross and probably ends around Hinckley
South
This runs from Croxall and probably ends at Tamworth.
Over the coming months the results of the research being undertaken will be added here.
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Historical Context.
Salt is an important part of human dietary needs as well as being used for many other functions and so was one of the earliest substances to be extracted and traded over long distances. In the England salt extraction was based along the coast where the salt would be evaporated out of the sea in lagoons called salterns. By the late iron age the salt trade was very profitable with the Iceni in what is now Norfolk becoming very wealthy, in part, as a result of this trade.
In land the salt was extracted from salt springs found in Worcestershire and Cheshire. In Cheshire local clay was used to form briquetages (known as Very Course Pottery (VCP)), which were clay containers that the brine water was put into then heated to evaporate the water to leave the salt. The salt would then be transported in the VCP to the customers.
In Leicestershire sherds of VCP have been discovered in late iron age settlements at Kirby Muxloe, Enderby, Huncote and Hinckley. The geological make up of the VCP has been examined and this would indicate that it came from the Cheshire area. So the question is how did these VCP get from Cheshire to central Leicestershire?
One option may have been to use the rivers. The River Trent could have been used to its junction with the River Soar where the boat could sail up to late iron age settlement at the modern Leicester. This site appears to have been one of the leading centres for the Corieltauvi and would have provided a ready distribution centre to settlements outside.
Whilst this option is plausible it does have some major flaws. The first is that there are no rivers that flow into River Trent from salt making areas of Cheshire. This would mean that the salt would have to be transported by horse back to River Trent for at least 25 km (Nantwich to Meaford and this assumes that the Trent at this point is navigable) . It could be then transported by boat the 120 km to Leicester.
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| Water Course Cheshire |
The second flaw with this is that the river option is at least 40 km further than travelling by land. There are a number of iron age forts that are near to the River Trent and it would seem reasonable to assume that they were also supplied with salt from Cheshire. If this was the case then it would make more sense to do this by horse back rather than from the river which in turn would assume that there was some form of salt road running along the western bank of the River Trent.
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| Known Iron Age Forts and possible Salt Road |
Of course the biggest flaw in this argument is that there are place names from Alrewas onwards in the research area that clearly suggest that three salt roads ran through the area.
So which of the salt roads would have been used? The most likely route for the salt to get to Kirby Muxloe, Enderby and Huncote would be via the north route. To get to Hinckley it is more likely to have taken the central route. It is one thing to surmise but quite another to prove and that is what this research is trying to do.
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