Open-pan salt making from lead using wood as a fuel. In Britain they established towns for salt production at Droitwich in Worcestershire, and Nantwich, Middlewich and Northwich in Cheshire. In the early Middle Ages these developed into the 'wich' towns of Cheshire. Small 'wich' houses containing several lead pans to evapourate the brine into salt, clustered around brine springs within each of the towns. The open-pan process continued largely unchanged throughout the medieval period. A 17th-century German wood-cut by Georgius Agricola shows the process in detail. Excavated evidence has uncovered wooden rakes to draw salt crystals to the side of the pan, and
Nantwich Bridge military use being exempt. The bridge appears to have survived the fire of 1583, which started nearby and destroyed much of the town to the east of the river. In 1622, William Webb writes: In 1652, Wich Bridge was described as lying on "y greatest & most frequented Road within this County", and it was designated a county bridge on 27 April 1652. This meant that the county was responsible for its maintenance, but also that Nantwich had to pay towards the maintenance of the other county bridges, a charge from which the town had previously been exempt. By 1663,