Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
FIG
33
. Kennexstone Farmhouse, built in 1610 at Kennexstone and re-erected at the Museum of Welsh Life at St
Fagans in 1963. (Jonathan Mullard)
David Painter for Figures
THE PRODUCTION OF SALT
On the west side of Port-Eynon Bay are what appears to be the ruined remains of two cottages (Fig. 34).
Below them, on the same level as the beach, are a number of stone-lined reservoirs surrounded by a mod-
ern concrete sea wall. In operation for about a hundred years between about 1550 and 1650, Port-Eynon
Salthouse is an early example of the industrial production of salt by the open-pan process. Sea water was
transferred by a simple wooden pump, from the stone-lined saltwater cisterns that still remain, to a pan-
houseonavanishedupperfloorofabuilding,whereitwouldhavebeenevaporatedinmetalpanssetover
flues heated by a coal-fired furnace. The cisterns, which are the most noticeable features of the remaining
complex, had flagged floors and lime-plastered walls and were formerly vaulted. Above the cisterns on a
lowcliffisarangeofbuildings,thoseatthesouthernendbeingdomesticaccommodation,whilethemore
extensive buildings to the north served as workshops, or storage facilities. In the seventeenth century a
fortified extension was added, with a series of musket loops, and it was later converted into a dwelling
beforebeingabandoned inthe1870s.Itisperhapsnotsurprising that thesalthouse wasfortified. Salt was
of great importance and subject to taxation and customs duties, while its value is shown by records of its
illicit production and smuggling.