THE CHESHIRE SUBSIDENCES
The salt industry of Cheshire may be divided into three periods, viz.:
the natural brine period, the rock-salt period, and the prepared brine
period. From Saxon times up to the last quarter of the seventeenth
century the manufacture of white salt from brine had been continued
without interruption, but the output had never been large. In 1675 the
production of the three “Wiches” was returned at 20,000 tons, and all
the evidence shows that the total annual make had never exceeded 30,000
tons. In 1670, rock-salt was discovered in the county, and for the next
hundred years, although brine continued to be worked, rock-salt mining
was the chief producing industry. With the collapse of the mines, the
salt proprietors turned once more to the brine supply, upon which
Cheshire has since risen to its present commercial eminence as one of
the great salt-making centres of the world.
In 1670, a rock of natural salt was discovered on the Marbury Estate,
about one mile north of Northwich, by one John Jackson, of Halton, who
was engaged at the time in “searching for coals on behalf of the Lord
of the Soil (or Manor, I should say), William Marbury, of Marbury,
Esquire.” The event was communicated to the Royal Society by Mr. Adam
Martindale in a letter dated 12th December, 1670. He added that the
liquid issuing from the rock was “a vigorous sharp brine beyond any
of the springs made use of in our salt works,” and, being asked by
the Royal Society to visit the place and send a further report, he
subsequently wrote: “The rock of salt, by the relation of the workmen,
is between 33 and 34 yards distant from the surface of the earth,
about 30 whereof are already digged and they hope to be at the Flagg
which covers the salt rock about three weeks hence.... That piece of
natural salt which the instrument brought up (divers saw it, a pure
ore) was as hard as alum and as pure.”
The records of the rock-salt mining period are singularly incomplete,
inexact, and disappointing. It is not known for certain which was
the first mine sunk after the discovery of the salt-bed in 1670. It
may have been the one which is described as “very near to a small
brook which drains Marbury Mere and joins the Witton Brook, near the
Buttevant Bridge on the Marbury Estate.” Or it may have been another
early mine which was situated “close to a small runnel or gutter which
runs into this small brook near the Dairy House Farm but passes across
the land of Mr. Lyons and over the old Marston mine.” If the curious
inquirer is not yet satisfied with these conjectures, he is further
informed that there is yet another subsidence of an old mine, “close to
the Forge Lane or road leading to Budworth across the Fields, where the
road branches off at the cottages and salt-works of Mr. Lyons’ property
... and this mine is probably the earliest sunk.”
But if little is known about the beginning of the salt-mining industry
in Cheshire, there is not much more to be learnt about its development
and ultimate decay. To-day, only the Adelaide Marston Mine at Northwich
is working, and of the nineteen mines that were open in Cheshire in
1881, only nine were at work, while from an undated plan and key
showing the rock-salt mines in the Northwich district, which was
probably published a few years earlier, we learn that of the fifty
rock-salt mines that had been abandoned, twelve had been sunk to the
bottom bed and the rest had been worked as top-bed mines.
[Illustration: INTERIOR PENNY’S LANE MINE, NORTHWICH]
The story of the exploitation of the top and bottom beds is one that
is soon told. The top bed was worked until the mines began to fall
in and the subsequent breaking in of fresh water converted the old
workings into brine reservoirs. In 1779, the discovery of the lower
bed of rock-salt at Lawton prompted the owners of the Marston Mine at
Northwich to sink below the top bed in which they were working, and,
in 1781, a trial shaft which was sunk from the top mine by means of a
horse gin, demonstrated the existence of the bottom deposit in that
district. Other owners transferred their operations from the top to the
bottom bed, and for the next fifty years practically all the rock-salt
was excavated from that source. In 1830 the roofs in these workings
began to crack, and attention was directed to the insufficiency of the
pillars by which they were supported. A competent surveyor, who did not
hesitate to declare that the workings were in a dangerously insecure
condition, was regarded as an alarmist by the old salt proprietors, who
commissioned other “experts” to examine the pits, and were satisfied
with their assurance that they considered each pit to be entirely free
from any danger, and that they should not hesitate to work in any of
them. Three years later the roof of the first bottom-bed mine fell in,
others collapsed in rapid succession, and by 1840 some twenty mines had
collapsed, let in water, and become filled with brine. In 1881, only
nine rock-salt mines were at work, and eight of these had a combined
area of 123 acres.
Rock-salt mining in England is a dead industry, but it will be of
interest to outline very briefly the methods that were employed in
Cheshire during the comparatively short period of its existence. The
old top-bed mines were operated, in the first place, with one shaft
to each mine, and they were ventilated by means of an air-pipe and a
fan. A horse gin was used for winding, but the winding-shaft in which
the gin rope worked did not go into the rock-salt, but only to within a
short distance of it, and it was out of this shaft, at a distance of 2
or 3 yds. from the bottom, that a side drift was driven. From this side
drift a windlass pit was sunk into the rock-salt, and it was up this
windlass pit that the rock-salt was drawn to the drift and thence taken
to and up the gin shaft, the part of the gin shaft below the drift
being used as a sump or lodgment for water. These top-bed workings
did not usually extend more than 100 yds. from the shaft, but, as the
number of the mines increased, the workings from adjoining shafts
occasionally become connected. In this way one shaft became a downcast
and the other an upcast, and the air-pipe and fan at each were able
to be dispensed with. The thickness of rock-salt worked averaged from
30 to 36 ft., and pillars of natural rock-salt, usually about 5 yds.
square, were left to support the roof and superincumbent strata.
Although the bottom-bed mines were worked upon the same plan, the
inadequacy of the supports employed in the top-mines was rectified by
an increase in the size of the supporting pillars and in the thickness
of the rock-salt roof that was left between them. Steam engines with
direct shafts to the bottoms of the mines were substituted for the
horse-gins and windlasses, and improved methods were introduced for
preventing water from breaking into the shafts. Two winding-shafts
were sunk, placed about 10 to 15 yds. apart, and a pump-shaft was
sunk to the depth to which the surface water penetrated. One of the
earliest precautions taken in the rock-salt shafts, and afterwards
in brine shafts when they came to be sunk through rock-salt, was to
protect the sides from the ravages of fresh water. All the shafts were
roofed over to keep out rain or snow, and the wood casing, which was
originally used, was replaced, in 1845, by cast-iron tubings, similar
in construction to those used in colliery shafts.
As soon as the miners had sunk the shaft to the depth of the sole
or floor of the mine and had made an opening large enough for their
purpose, they proceeded to blast off enough rock to form a chamber
about 5 ft. high. This formed, they advanced by blasting off the
rock-salt from the face of the seam. The salt was loaded into waggons,
which ran along small railways to the mouth of the shaft. The men
engaged in blasting the rock and squaring the walls and pillars (for
these were left quite square and well hewn) were called _miners_; those
who loaded the trucks and conveyed them to the shaft were _ferriers_.
They were a fine set of men, and their occupation, compared with
coal-mining, was a very healthy one. The mines were of an equable
temperature, and were sufficiently warm for the men to dispense with
their shirts. Being lofty, the air was pure, except when excessive
blasting was undertaken. The greatest number of men employed in one
pair of shafts was about eighty, and the quantity of blasting powder
used by that number in the course of a day averaged 1 cwt. Safety fuses
were seldom used, the charge being fired by a straw filled with fine
powder, which was lighted from a candle.
Many of the mines were of considerable size, and some of them increased
at the rate of about an acre annually. The quantity of rock-salt mined
was small compared with coal. No mine in the district yielded above
40,000 tons per annum.
Rock-salt is more free from danger than most kinds of mining; no
explosions occur, for there are no deleterious gases, and accidents are
rare. In a general way the rock-salt strata are remarkably free from
carbonic acid gas, and in only one instance in Northwich, and twice at
Meadow Bank, Winsford, does fire-damp appear to have been met with, and
then only at pipe veins and in very small quantity. There are no falls
of earth, as in coal mines, for the rock-salt is extremely tenacious,
and the miners never undermine it but blast it, which is a much safer
operation. The two great dangers to which rock-salt mining is exposed,
though they rarely result in loss to human life, are the falling in
of the mine bodily, or of the shafts and neighbouring earths, and the
breaking in of brine either at the head of the top-rock shaft or from
old mines, long disused, and full of brine.
Neither the name of the first mine that fell in, nor the date of its
collapse, is recorded. We know that a mine in Witton fell in in 1750,
and another to the north of the Northwich Town Bridge followed in 1759,
and that many others collapsed before 1770. Lakes, or “flashes” as they
are called locally, have formed over the larger of these sinkings,
but the sites are more commonly marked by what are known as rock-pit
holes, and large tracts of country are scored with these funnel-shaped
indentations. There can be no doubt that a number of these old mines
were worked with pillars that were too few and slender for the purpose,
and these supports gradually weakened to their ultimate collapse under
the pressure of the superincumbent earths. As the sinking did not take
place evenly all over the mine, but most frequently occurred near the
shafts and at the greatest distance from the sides of the cavity, the
roof would curve down towards the sinking centre and the falling-in
formed the V-shaped apertures on the surface which are described as
rock-pit holes. But, while in a percentage of cases the collapse of the
mine could be traced to the crashing of the pillars, the destruction
of the majority of the mines was caused directly by the influx of
water, although this water, having become saturated with salt, would,
if undisturbed, cause no further havoc in the interior of the mine.
But the manufacture of white salt from brine, which was temporarily
surpassed in importance by the rock-salt industry, was not
discontinued, and a copious supply of brine flowing over the rock head
of the upper bed, was tapped by shafts and pumped to the surface.
When, about 1850, this supply showed signs of failing, attention was
directed to the enormous reservoirs of brine in the old inundated
mines, into which had drained a great quantity of the rock-head brine.
The attempt to pump brine out of the abandoned workings was successful,
and for some years an abundant supply was obtained. After 1870 the
pumping operations caused further collapses, the land overlying the
mines subsided, and lakes were formed which, at intervals, broke into
the partially exhausted reservoirs, and, pouring through the top-rock
workings into the mines in the bottom bed of salt, replenished the
supply of brine. A great collapse which occurred in the Dunkirk
district in 1880 let down the waters of Cranage Brook and the
Wadebrook, together with a huge quantity from the river Weaver. The
subsidence resulted in the formation of a large lake, which, following
upon a later subsidence in the same area, suddenly disappeared into the
earth and literally flooded all the underlying strata.
Surprise has frequently been expressed that in a salt country in which
brine has been manufactured for over twenty centuries, the existence
of the rock-salt deposits should only have been discovered in the last
two hundred and fifty years, but it must be borne in mind that not
only was the brine the best custodian of the secret of its own source,
but that, when the problem of the supply had been solved, the danger of
tapping and controlling it had still to be overcome. When the supply
of brine in many of the springs was cut into, it proved so copious
that the sinkers had to flee for their lives and to ascend the shaft
among the brine. The fact that the depth at which the brine would be
encountered was unknown, explained the inability to provide a safeguard
against the sudden inrush of brine, but subsequent observation showed
that when the workmen met with the “flag,” or bed of hard marlstone
that existed above the top of the rock-salt in many districts, the
brine might be expected to be found at high pressure. It was then
the practice to case the shaft sides down to the flag to prevent the
entrance of surface water, and either to blow through the flag with
powder or pierce it with boring rods. At a later period, the shaft was
sunk to the approximate point of encounter with the brine, and cased
with iron cylinders, the bottom cylinder being furnished with an iron
bottom pierced with two pipe holes. A column of pipes was erected in
the cylinder, and a set of boring rods was let down each pipe, so that
when the flag was bored through, the brine rose until it attained its
level in the pipes, while by means of a tap attached to each pipe it
was possible to stop the entry of the brine and to empty the shaft.
In the brine-shafts employed in the case of the old rock-salt mines,
in which the brine was met with at a much higher pressure than in
the rock-head brine-shafts, the tapping operation was attended with
extraordinary difficulties. The brine in the old workings rose to a
height corresponding with that attained by the brine found at the
rock-head, and as it had to be tapped through a pillar near the bottom
of the old workings, the pressure was proportionately higher. When
the holeing was first effected into the brine in the old bottom-bed
workings, the rush of the incoming brine was so strong that it passed
through the two 5 in. bore holes and rose up a 4½ ft. shaft to a height
of 67 yds. in eight minutes. The shaft for tapping this supply of brine
was sunk in a pillar of rock-salt, and a drift, fitted with two 5 in.
bore-holes, was worked through the intervening face and into the brine.
When these bore-holes were knocked through, the brine entered with the
report of a cannon, and the engineer and his assistant, leaving their
tools behind them, leapt into the bucket and were hastily drawn up the
shaft, closely pursued by the rising brine.
An improved process for tapping the brine, which entirely removed the
danger attending the operation, was subsequently introduced. This
was effected by boring the last part of the main bore-hole through a
stuffing-box at the other end--an innovation which prevented brine from
escaping during the boring. A drift, with the usual ⅝ in. bore-hole
in advance, was driven 61 yds. into the barrier, until the small
bore-hole showed that only 10 yds. remained between the face and the
brine that was known to be present in the old workings. Into this
remaining 10 yds. of barrier a hole 11 in. in diameter was bored until
nearly through, and a closely-fitted pipe was inserted into the hole
for a distance of 7 ft. The pipe was 10 ft. long, but at 7 ft. from the
inner end was a disc 3 ft. in diameter to rest against the face of the
drift, leaving the remaining 3 ft. of pipe in the drift. About midway
between the disc and the outer end of the pipe, were placed two strong
iron uprights, let into a trench cut 1 ft. deep in solid rock-salt in
the roof and floor to secure the pipe against the pressure. These two
uprights were placed close together at the top and bottom, but in the
middle they were curved so as to form a circle for the pipe to pass
between them. The face of the drift against which the disc had to rest,
having been carefully dressed, and a disc of india-rubber covered with
red lead having been placed between the iron disc and the dressed face
of rock-salt, the iron disc was secured up tight against the face by
means of six set screws. A stop-valve was then fitted to the outer end
of the pipe, and to this, for the temporary purpose only of completing
the bore-hole, was attached an end piece with a stuffing box and a hole
in it large enough for the bore rod to be worked through. The bore rock
was then withdrawn and, the valve being closed, the stuffing box and
the temporary end piece were removed. A range of pipes was attached to
the stop-valve and, in this range, the brine was taken through the old
workings and up one of the shafts to the surface.
Many geologists have subscribed to the theory that the Cheshire
meres were formed by subsidences which occurred in pre-historic
times, but the evidence based on the phenomena attending the modern
subsidences proves that the latter were the result of artificial and
readily-identified causes. Leland, in 1533, reports a sinking near
Combermere and the formation of a pit containing salt-water; in 1657 a
small sinking occurred at Bickley, near Malpas; and a third took place
in 1713 at Weaver Hall, to the south of Winsford. No traces of any of
these subsidences now remain, but, from the descriptions handed down
to us, these sinkings belonged to the class of funnel-shaped holes and
were of limited diameter and no great depth.
Of the modern subsidences, which are of three kinds, we have no
documentary evidence prior to 1777, and the earliest distinct record
belongs to the year 1790. From that time to the present day this class
of sinking has continued to increase in extent year by year. In 1790
the sinking portion along the Witton Brook was recorded as being 130
yds. long by 90 yds. wide. In 1837, the subsidence had obtained an area
of 1,230 yds. long by 130 yds. wide. In 1811, about 20 statute acres
in Witton commenced sinking, and in the ensuing thirty-three years
some portions of this area had sunk 24 ft. In 1880, the piece of water
called the Top of the Brook had subsided over an area of 4,370 ft. by
1,470 ft., and in the same year it was estimated that no less than
2,700 acres of land in Northwich and Winsford were inundated.
These modern subsidences usually consist of funnel-shaped holes caused
by the falling-in of top-rock mines, and of trough-shaped hollows
which cannot be connected with rock-salt mining, and are frequently
found in places far removed from the localities of the old workings.
Of two dozen subsidences, two are nearly four miles distant from the
nearest old workings or from the brine shafts, fifteen are upwards of
two miles, and only one is less than a mile from either a mine or a
pumping station. The subsidences could not be caused by volcanic action
or the shock of earthquakes, as nothing of the kind has occurred in
the districts, and it is impossible to explain them by the action of
natural brine springs running to waste in the brooks or rivers, because
it is known that no such springs now exist, while evidence accumulated
from all parts of the world confirms the conclusion that where brine
springs escape into the streams, no subsidence has ever occurred.
Yet it is evident in Cheshire that some subterranean denudation must
be taking place which is removing portions of the lower strata and
allowing the super-incumbent earths to sink into the excavations
thus made. Many theories have been advanced to explain the phenomena,
but even those people whose interests have caused them to seek for
alternative causes must realize that it can only be attributed to the
simple and most obvious agency.
When the number of brine pits was multiplied and the natural springs
of a weak solution of salt decreased in volume, it was necessary to
sink down to the rock-head brine, which was a highly-saturated solution
consisting of one part salt to three parts water. When this supply is
pumped up, its place is taken by fresh water, which, flowing over the
rock-beds, takes up its quota of salt on its way to the pumping shafts,
and is raised to the surface in the form of brine.
It is not the presence of water over the beds of salt or in the old
salt workings which causes the damage, because when such water has
taken up salt to the extent of a fourth of its bulk, it remains
inactive and makes no further ravages upon the mineral earths with
which it is in contact. But when the saturated brine is pumped up
and its place is taken with a new supply of water which collects its
tribute from the salt strata, and that water, in its turn, is raised,
to be replaced by more, and when it is known that each 100 tons of
water that traverses the salt-bed to the pumps carries away with it 25
tons of solid earth, the work of destruction that is continually going
on is explained.
It may be convenient to explain at this point that the subsidences
caused by this simple operation of removing rock-salt from the earth in
the form of brine are divided into three classes, viz.--
1. Shallow troughs, with sides not terraced or broken up.
2. Very shallow depressions extending over considerable areas.
3. Deep troughs, much broken up, and with stepped or terraced sides.
With these three classes in mind, it is easy to follow the results of
the action of the subterranean brine and associate the causes with the
effects produced. At first the water flowed over the salt in irregular
channels and reached the pumping centres by devious routes, but after a
time it made defined courses for itself exactly as the rainfall carves
out for itself channels on the surface of the earth. These underground
streams of brine all gravitate towards the pumps, widening and
deepening as the continually renewed water takes up its supply of salt.
Where the earths overlying these brine “runs” are not too tenacious,
they soon follow the hollow or trough formed on the surface of the salt
bed, and a corresponding hollow or trough is formed on the surface
of the ground. Where the hollow forms at an early stage, it rarely
attains any considerable depth, for the sinking earths impede the
course of the flowing brine stream and cause the fluid to spread and be
diffused over a wider area. These subsidences are the shallow troughs,
not stepped or terraced on the sides, and are best seen in streets
and roads where the weight of the houses and the constant passage of
traffic cause the earths to gradually follow the wasting surface of
the salt. Where, at a considerable distance from the shafts, the water
has not formed for itself a definite channel, it percolates over a
wide area. The denudation in such cases is more generally spread, and
a very extensive shallow trough or basin is formed. Again, where the
pumping stations are close together, or in the same line, the various
rivulets or streams of brine converge into one broad and deep channel,
in which the denudation proceeds with great rapidity. The magnitude of
these channels causes the super-incumbent ground to subside swiftly,
forming deep troughs with stepped or terraced sides, where the earths
have broken away in huge masses. Where the earth consists of strong
marls and a kind of flagstone they are very tenacious and remain
suspended for a considerable time over these deeper cavities. When
they will bear no longer, a sudden fall occurs in one spot, and tens
of thousands of tons of suspended earths fall into the trough below,
forcing out the stream of brine at the weaker places and leaving a
huge, crater-shaped hole on the surface, which fills with water.
[Illustration: REMARKABLE SUBSIDENCE IN NORTHWICH]
In addition to the three classes of subsidences already mentioned,
there is another which is the result of a combination of collapses of
the surface earth caused by the rock-salt mining operations, and the
denudation of subterranean strata caused by the pumping of brine. The
pumping from the reservoirs formed by the flooding of the old mines
does not empty these huge receptacles, as the place of the brine
is continuously retaken by fresh water, which naturally gravitates
to these centres and proceeds to dissolve and take up its quota of
rock-salt. When a subsidence occurs on the site of these old workings
it is of the most destructive nature, and as all the top-rock mines
were in the neighbourhood of streams and brooks, the surface waters
flow into the cavity until it is filled to the level of the earth
and allows the streams to pursue their proper course. But as fast as
the fresh water becomes saturated and is pumped to the surface, the
overlying stream or brook lets in further supplies of fresh water to
fill the vacuum, and the work of internal destruction is followed by
further subsidences of the suspended earths.
The immense bodies of water in the neighbourhood of Northwich and
Winsford, locally called “Flashes,” which cover a total area of many
hundreds of acres, are the work of subsidences. The Flashes are not
shallow swamps, but lakes varying in depth over many acres, from a few
yards to 50 ft. The largest Flash, known as the Top of the Brook and
resembling the letter =L= in shape, has a length in each arm of about
half a mile, an average breadth of a quarter of a mile, and attains a
depth of 150 ft. In an account of these subsidences, written in 1879,
we read: “The whole of the surrounding district still sinks rapidly,
and year by year the water covers more ground. The land subsides
gradually here; but when we go a quarter of a mile to the north-east
of the Top of the Brook, we come across a subsidence of a still more
alarming character. Here the ground sinks bodily in immense masses to
a great depth. A tiny brook or ditch that a child could skip across
passed over flat fields some five years ago. Gradually the land began
to sink, and cracks opened in the surface right across the course of
the brook. The water went down the crevices. The land immediately sank
more rapidly; huge cracks, wide enough for a man to slip down, formed,
and very soon a district extending fully one thousand feet in length
by as many in breadth, sank rapidly to a depth of forty or fifty feet
in the centre, and was filled up to a certain height with water, which
covered the hedges and trees. At times cracks opened in the bottom of
this lake, and the whole of the water rushing rapidly below, caused
still more extensive sinking.”
One of the most extraordinary subsidences, which was described in
_Chambers’s Journal_, occurred in Dunkirk, on the outskirts of
Northwich, in December, 1880. The earliest intimation of impending
disturbance on an unusual scale was a rumbling subterranean noise, the
violent bubbling of the water in all the surrounding pools, and the
uprushing of air and foul gas through rifts which its passage tore in
the ground. It was quickly discovered that Wincham Brook, a channel of
water nearly 20 ft. in width, had broken into the earth about 1,000
ft. from its entrance into the Top of the Brook, and the uprush of air
from the old mines, was caused by the force of the descending waters. A
series of alarming, but comparatively small, subterranean displacements
caused extensive rifts in the ground about Ashton Salt-works, and these
were followed by a sudden explosion in a neighbouring pool, which
ejected a geyser of mud and water some 30 ft. into the air. In the ruin
that ensued, stacks of timber, an engine and boiler, a salt pan, and
other material disappeared into the gaping earth, and a massive chimney
stack, some 90 ft. high and 9 ft. square at the base, tilted towards
the centre of subsidence and collapsed with a terrible crash. Scarcely
had this subsidence ceased, says the writer in _Chambers’s Journal_,
“when an enormous sinking of the whole of Ashton’s Old Rock Pit Hole
and the surrounding land, for an area of over five hundred feet in
diameter, took place, leaving two very deep holes. The land was riven
and cracked all round, and fell in steps of two feet. Over ten thousand
tons of water went down into the subterranean cavities. A huge brine
cistern was riven in two, and the brine all lost; and two large brick
kilns cut completely in halves, and the bricks scattered about. The
whole surface of the Weaver and the Top of the Brook was lowered fully
a foot over one hundred and sixty acres in about four hours; and if
we add to this the whole of the water of the Wincham Brook for twelve
hours, we shall find, on a careful computation, that not less than six
hundred thousand tons of water rushed below.”
From the time of the “Great Subsidence,” as this event is described,
the sinking has been continuous throughout the locality. In some places
meadows have been converted into swamps, roads have sunk fully 30 ft.
below their original level, and small brooks have become lakes of
many acres in extent; sunken and distorted fences, roads, and streams
are common objects of the country-side, the tenure of pastoral lands
is precarious, and property is valueless for building purposes; and
nothing but its inexhaustible reserves of brine saves the district from
abandonment as a place accursed.
The shallow, gradual, almost imperceptible subsidences which occurred
in the neighbourhood of the towns of Northwich and Winsford were at
first infrequent and of comparative unimportance, but as time went
on the damage to property increased so rapidly that, in 1860, the
house-owners of Northwich combined in an unsuccessful attempt to obtain
legal redress. By 1880, many parts of the towns were rendered unfit for
habitation. In Northwich alone, nearly 400 houses and other property
to the value of over £100,000 were more or less seriously affected,
while water-mains, sewers, and gas-pipes were being continually
repaired; houses were condemned, pulled down and rebuilt, and bridges
had to be raised. The rents of many lots of property were absorbed in
keeping them in repair, and in some districts property had been raised
and rebuilt three times in eleven years. “The area of the mischief
is extending yearly,” wrote Mr. Thomas Ward in 1881, “and a larger
proportion of property is becoming affected, and more and more land
is sinking beneath the water and increasing the area of the already
existing extensive lakes. Very few, except those conversant with the
district, have the slightest knowledge of the amount of suffering
caused to property owners by this subsiding of the land.”
For over half a century the appearance of Northwich, with its
undulating streets, its ramshackle, dilapidated houses, its fissured
walls, and its system of shoring and bolting-up of property to postpone
as long as possible its inevitable condemnation and demolition, has
presented a tragico-comic spectacle. “If a stranger were to be set down
some morning in the town of Northwich,” wrote a _Times_ correspondent,
“without any previous knowledge of its peculiarities, he would be
struck with a startling and novel spectacle. He would see buildings of
every sort, from the humble, two-storeyed cottage of the artisan to
the solidly built church or chapel, standing many degrees out of the
perpendicular, and suggestive, all of them, were it not for the props
and iron stays with which they are secured, of some recent convulsion
of nature. In main thoroughfares and back streets alike there are
houses whose sloping floors and cracked walls would lend considerable
colour to such an effort of the imagination. The inhabitants seem to
take this tumble-down state of their dwellings quite as a matter of
course. They have, in fact, to make the best of a condition of things
from which there is absolutely no escape. The effects described are
produced, not indeed by any sudden catastrophe, but by a slow, though
equally effective process of subsidence, which may be detected in
continuous operation over nearly the whole area of the Cheshire salt
field, and which will continue to operate so long as the earth yields
its vast stores of salt for human consumption.”
But although newspaper representatives could philosophize upon the
matter-of-fact spirit in which the inhabitants of the salt towns
faced existence in their tumble-down surroundings, and the salt
proprietors desired that they should make the best of a condition of
things from which they wished them to believe there was absolutely no
amelioration or escape, a feeling of resentment was rapidly growing
in the neighbourhood. The people of Northwich and Winsford were being
pumped out of their houses and out of their lands, and the future
held every promise of a continuation and extension of the damage.
Lord Delamere, who, as an owner and letter of salt lands, benefited
by the brine industry and suffered from the depredation it wrought,
admitted the damage and the cause thereof. Indeed, nobody but the salt
proprietors doubted that the pumpers were wholly responsible for the
destruction, and most people recognized that their wrong-doing was
twofold in character. Standing on the ancient assumption in law that
everything beneath a man’s property belongs to the owner, the owners
of property in the affected districts contended that they were not
only being deprived of the rock-salt which legally belonged to them,
but were further despoiled by having their land made worthless by the
abstraction of the salt for which they received no payment. The justice
of the protest was obvious, and it became a public question how far
these operations, useful in themselves, but involving consequences of a
disastrous nature, should be allowed to proceed. In December, 1880, the
_Daily News_ asked who was to compensate the sufferers, who had neither
caused nor contributed to the disaster.
Following the failure of the property owners to obtain compensation
from the salt proprietors for the damage attributable to the pumping
operations, an application was made to the Trustees of the River Weaver
to devote a portion of their surplus revenue for compensation purposes.
The application was refused, and an appeal to Quarter Sessions failed.
The evil was allowed to drag on until 1871, when the Board of Trade,
in response to representations made to them by the Northwich Salt
Chamber of Commerce, instructed Mr. Joseph Dickinson to report upon
the salt districts of Cheshire. Mr. Dickinson, one of the most eminent
Inspectors of Mines in the service of the Government, after a prolonged
investigation, reported his conclusions that the subsidences and the
resulting damages to property were caused by the pumping of brine,
which constituted a public danger and inflicted heavy losses upon
many persons totally unconnected with the salt industry. A further
report by Colonel Cox, corroborating the conclusions arrived at by Mr.
Dickinson, came before Parliament in 1879, and upon the recommendation
of the Local Government Board, the local Boards decided to promote
the Cheshire Salt Districts Compensation Bill, “to make provision for
the assessment, levy, and application for compensation for damage by
subsidence of land in the salt districts of the County of Cheshire, and
for other purposes.”
The salt proprietors exerted every effort to frustrate the plans of the
promoters of the Bill; they declared that a tax upon salt would cripple
the trade and ruin the entire neighbourhood; they endeavoured to create
local ill-feeling by insisting that the movement was an attempt of
the property-owners to saddle the ratepayers with the expense of the
proposed measure. Briefly stated, the case that the promoters were
asked to make required them to prove (_a_) the subsidence in the salt
district; (_b_) that the subsidence was caused by the pumping of brine
for the manufacture of salt; (_c_) that the subsidence was of a most
extensive and serious character, and affected the property of persons
deriving no benefit either from the manufacture of salt in the form of
compensation from the salt manufacturers for the salt extracted, or for
damage done to the property by such abstraction; (_d_) that there was
no legal remedy for the injury suffered; and, finally, (_e_) that the
moneys required to adequately compensate for the injury done, if levied
upon the manufacture of salt, would not injuriously affect the salt
industry.
[Illustration: A ROW OF OPEN PANS]
A copy of the Bill was lodged in December, 1880; it was read a first
and second time on 21st January and 4th February, 1881, and referred to
a Select Committee, which commenced sitting on 5th May, and on the 20th
of the same month announced their unanimous opinion that the preamble
of the Bill had not been proved. In the preamble of the Bill it was
estimated that a contribution not exceeding threepence for every ton of
salt in brine in the district covered by the Act would be sufficient to
provide the required compensation. The opponents of the Bill declared
that a compensation tax upon the salt trade would severely injure the
industry and act as a restraint upon trade; they put forward expert
witnesses to contend that if the brine--which they contended was
produced by rainfall percolating through the superincumbent strata and
reaching the salt--was not pumped out, it would run away to the sea,
and the consequent subsidence of land and injury to property would
not be arrested. The theory that brine, in quantity sufficient for
the manufacture of 1,600,000 tons of salt per annum would, without
pumping, have been carried away into the rivers by natural agency and
deposited in the sea, was supported by such ingenious misstatement
and misrepresentation, and the fictitious instances of brine springs
overflowing and causing damage in other parts of the world were quoted
with so much specious authority that they succeeded in wrecking the
Bill.
After a further ten years of continued subsidences and attendant damage
to public and private property, the Brine Pumping (Compensation for
Subsidence) Bill was introduced in 1891, to authorize the formation of
Compensation Districts and Boards, with power to levy a yearly rate not
exceeding threepence per 1,000 gallons of brine pumped. Shortly after
the passing of the Bill, the action of Northwich, which memorialized
for the formation of the whole of the County of Cheshire into one
district for purposes of compensation, led to an inquiry by the Local
Government Board, as the result of which Middlewich and Sandbach were
excluded. The Provisional Order uniting Northwich and Winsford in one
area was opposed by Winsford, and a Select Committee of the House, in
1893, quashed the Provisional Order and made Northwich an independent
compensation district.
The next great struggle in the salt district, known locally as the
Battle of the Brine, arose out of the action of the Salt Union, which,
in 1909, enlarged its works at Weston Point with the intention of
manufacturing salt at that place from brine pumped at Marston, near
Northwich, 11 miles distant. In pursuance of their policy of stalling
off competition and safeguarding their monopoly, the Salt Union, in
1890, had successfully petitioned against the Bill that was promoted
to obtain powers to convey brine from Cheshire to be made into salt
at Widnes, in Lancashire, and at Middlewich they had obtained an
injunction to restrain trade competitors from laying pipes under one
of the streets of the town for the conveyance of brine from their
own pumps to their own salt-pans. In 1766, 1833, and 1861, the Trent
and Mersey Canal, the Grand Junction Railway, and the West Cheshire
Railway, respectively, received authorizations from Parliament, but in
each instance a clause was inserted prohibiting the several companies
from conveying or permitting to be conveyed in or upon any part of
their properties, any brine for the making of salt to any district
beyond the district in which salt was then made. In 1884, when the
London and North-Western Railway sought to gain the repeal of the brine
clause in order to enable brine to be carried from one salt township to
another adjoining, Parliament refused to sanction even such a limited
modification of the prohibition. The logical objection which the salt
districts opposed to the removal from the several pumping centres of
the brine upon which the prosperity of the towns entirely depended, had
thus consistently been upheld by Parliament, but in the face of these
facts, and of their previous attitude on the subject, the Salt Union
insisted upon their right to carry brine from Marston to Weston Point,
and announced their intention to defend their position to the utmost of
their power.
It must be explained that the Marbury Pipe Line had been laid in 1882
by the Mersey Salt & Brine Company, who carried it, by agreement,
across lands belonging to private landowners and over a canal belonging
to the North Stafford Railway. The railway made a formal protest, but
an amicable settlement was ultimately reached by which the Mersey
Salt Company agreed to pay the North Stafford Company £5 a year and
to remove the pipe on receipt of a three months’ notice. The railway
company appear to have persisted with their opposition in order to
force an admission from the Mersey Company that they possessed no
permanent right to carry the pipe across their canal, but the concern
was of such trifling importance that it was practically ignored by the
people of the district, and for twenty years after the property of
the Mersey Salt Company and the Marbury Brine Pipe had been acquired
by the Salt Union, the question of the removal of brine from the
neighbourhood in which it was raised had found all classes of the
salt community united against such proposals. But with the completion
of the works at Weston Point, and the enlargement of the Marbury
Pipe and the installation of powerful engines, capable of driving
millions of gallons of brine from Marbury to be converted into salt
at the sea-board, a new menace was organized against which the Urban
Authorities and Local Councils made a long and spirited, if fruitless,
resistance.
In the autumn of 1910, the North Stafford Railway served the Salt Union
with a notice to remove their pipe line from the Trent and Mersey Canal
by the end of the following March, and the Salt Union proving obdurate,
the towns of Northwich, Winsford, and Middlewich promoted the Brine
Pumping (Cheshire) Bill, “to regulate the conveyance of brine pumped,
raised and gotten” in the county. The original draft, which proposed
to permit the removal of brine by pipe to a distance of three miles
within the county from the place at which it was raised, was amended
to permit manufacturers to carry brine by pipe from one set of works
to another in their own occupation, and they further attempted to meet
the alleged rights of the Salt Union by the insertion of a clause
allowing the Marbury Pipe to be used for the conveyance of brine to
the extent of 250 million gallons a year. But the Salt Union declined
all conciliatory overtures, and combated the Bill before the Select
Committee on the grounds that it was a proposal to alter the common
law of England and interfere with the sacred rights of property. The
injury that was sought to be done, not only to the Salt Union but to
the export trade of the country, was enlarged upon, and the Committee
may have been impressed by the assurance that the Union, so far from
intending to leave Winsford and Northwich, expected to do an even
greater trade in those districts in the future than had been done
there in the past. In the result, the Salt Union’s insistence upon the
legality of a course of action which they had previously denounced and
opposed as totally illegal, carried so much weight with the Select
Committee, that they made an unsavoury meal of the Parliamentary
decisions of 1766, 1833, 1861, 1890, 1891, and 1893, and announced that
the Bill could not proceed.