Herald - Issue 423

Page 8 • The HERALD • 12th May 2022 v SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL BUSINESSES v Kitchen & Bathroom Showroom with free design service Tel: 023 8084 3787 Email: showroom@pcbuildingsupplies.co.ukWeb : www.pcbuildingsupplies.co.uk ALL ASPECTS OF ELECTRICAL WORK UNDERTAKEN • Full Rewires • New Circuits • Consumer Unit Replacements • Test and Inspection • Landlord Certification • Smart Homes • Central Heating Controls 023 8089 0932 or 07534 343631 www.alnelectrical.co.uk info@alnelectrical.co.uk The Difference is Clear Local family run company offering • TV & Radio aerials installed, serviced • Digital Reception Specialists • Sky Digital & BBC Digital Problems • Foreign Satellite Channel Specialists • Satellites & Video Distribution • Telephone Extension Points APPROVED MEMBER OF THE CAI NO CALL OUT CHARGE 023 8086 8074/07855 793675 Send your local news to The Editor, The Herald, 2 High Street, Hythe SO45 6AH Fawley and Ashlett Salterns by Robin Somes, Fawley & Blackfield Memories Around the shores of the Solent and Isle of Wight, people have been building salterns, where salt is obtained from pools of evaporating sea water, for millennia. It is known that salterns existed around Ashlett and Fawley in Saxon times, in the 7th and 8th centuries AD; it’s likely their produce was used for salting locally-caught sh, so that it could be transported to market in Hamwic, the early settlement that became Southampton. e Fawley parish register of 1687 records a payment of two shillings to omas Flight of Ashlett Mill “for ye saltern” . Mary Gould, in “300 Years in a Hampshire Parish” , reveals that the records have “continual mention of rates paid for the salterns and reference to the ‘Salt Officer’ who collected the duty on salt. The remains of them may be seen on the marshes below as a merchant, aged 50, living in Ashlett Mill House with his wife and family. Stephen’s father, omas Barney (1754-1833), from Beaulieu, had also run the saltern, as well as Ashlett Mill, and the adjacent public house, and is commemorated for rebuilding the Mill into more or less its present form, in 1816. omas bequeathed his saltern, mill and public house to his eldest daughters Elizabeth and Anne, and others; how the saltern then passed to his son Stephen is probably a subject for another instalment. Salt from the salterns around the Solent was exported around the country, and beyond, for centuries. However, by the mid-nineteenth century, cheaper imports and new methods of extracting rock salt from the mines in Cheshire made sea salt uneconomic. e salterns fell into disuse, and milling corn became much more important, for a while at least, until that too became uneconomic. Perhaps, given the renewed popularity of sea salt, Solent salterns might one day be in use again. Copthorne, and a raised dyke leading to them is the old pack mule road used to convey the salt from saltern to customer” . Only a short stretch of Salterns Lane in Fawley now remains, behind the church, leading to the re nery car park. e 1838 Tithe Map of Fawley shows more; two salterns and associated buildings lay either side of the Mill Pond, behind the Jolly Sailor, and on the land now forming the Ashlett Sailing Club compound – in total around 15 acres. Both salterns were equipped with boiling houses, where the concentrated brine would be boiled to crystallise out the salt. The salterns were at that time owned by the Manor of Cadland, and Stephen Barney, who is shown in the 1841 census Part of the remaining Ashlett saltern, in 2014 Photo by Robin Somes Music for the Monarchy Southampton Choral Society will be holding ‘Music for the Monarchy’ – a singing workshop on Saturday 14th May 10am to 3.30pm at St John’s Church, Hedge End, SO30 4AF. Music on the day will include Zadok the Priest, I was glad and Jerusalem. A light lunch is available on the day for £4. Tickets are £16, for more information please visit: southamptonchoralsociety. org.uk