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
Tarvin in the English Civil War (infantry) and horse (cavalry) towards Northwich, and on the way they took cattle without paying for them. When Morrow's scouts approached Hartford Green, a party of soldiers from the garrison sallied out to chase them off, but the Parliamentary soldiers got too close to the main body. A skirmish ensued at Sandyway. The Royalists won the day taking fifteen prisoners, but Colonel Marrow was mortally wounded and died the next day in Chester. After the skirmish it seems that the Royalist detachment made for Tarvin, because two days later (Tuesday 20 August) a party of Parliamentarians from Nantwich with the