Starting Point - Lostock Gralam Station. Finishing Point - Northwich Station. Distance - 7.2 Miles
Below - The station name board at Lostock Gralam which even confirms my plans for the day.
The Lion Salt Works operated between 1894 and 1986, as the last of once countless open pan salt works in the area it was saved as a museum. More detail about the history of the works can be found on the Lion Salt Works Trust website.
The museum website recommends those visiting by train to arrive at Lostock Gralam station and walk along the Trent and Mersey Canal to reach the museum. Though it is further than Northwich station the walk is a better one along the canal towpath rather than busy roads.
1934 Map (right hand side of map)
It's a short walk from the station to the former Wincham Wharf (now The Lambs public house) where Manchester Road crosses the canal.
Below - Heading north from the former Wincham Wharf the first industrial site is the former Woodside, Sunbeam and Wincham Hall salt works, now the Wincham Business Park in various industrial uses.
The Lion Salt Works is accessible through a gate off the canal towpath.
Below - A map of the museum site (click to enlarge)
Below - Some of the historic buildings at the salt works site, on the left one of the pan houses and the engine house and chimney on the right.
Below - The furnaces under one of the salt pans.
Below - One of the pan houses. The workers would scoop the salt from the brine in moulds.
Below a disused pan house showing how the walls under the pan were patched up as they distorted under the weight of the pan and how the pans were constantly patched up due to corrosion.
Below - The hot house where the blocks of salt were dried over the flues from the furnaces.
Below - The crushing mill in which blocks of salt were crushed in to ground salt.
The cutting room where blocks of salt were cut. Just the remnants of a few of the cutting machines survive and most of the space is now taken up with displays.
Below - Outside the main works buildings is the engine house. This is a steam powered capstan made by Liverpool crane maker Wilson. The capstan was used to shunt railway wagons.
Below - The other machinery in the engine house.
Below - A restored salt wagon at the site of the railway sidings.
Below - The smithy where equipment was made and repaired for the works including the patches for the salt pans.
Below - The boiler that would have provided the steam that worked the machinery in the engine house and the brine pump across the entrance road.
Below - The engine house and brine pump with the "Nodding Donkey" brine pump that was originally powered by a steam engine.
Below - The works offices.
Below - The window in the office building where the workers would have received their wages.
Below - The former Red Lion Hotel, the works began in the hotel's yard and went on to take over the former hotel. This was where the works got its name.
Below - Remnants of another salt pan.
Below - The brine tank outside the pan buildings.
Below - Returning to the canal where the works buildings front on to the canal.
Below - The brine tank baring the lettering of an earlier version of the museum. It is now council run and opens more regularly.
Below - A narrow boat on the Trent and Mersey Canal.
Below - The bridge carrying Marbury Lane over the canal.
Below - Anderton Marina. The basin on the south side of the canal is on the site of a basin that was connected to another salt works by a railway.
Below - A narrow boat off licence "Barge Inn Booze" moored at Anderton
Below - Another top industrial heritage attraction on this walk is the Anderton Boat Lift built to connect the Trent & Mersey Canal at the top to the Weaver Navigation at the bottom. A useful connection in this industrialised area. Previously chutes were used to transfer salt from boats on the canal to boats on the navigation.
The boat lift has a visitor centre with displays about the lift and local industries. Boat trips are usually available though they weren't at the time of this visit due to winter maintenance work. The lift was built in 1875 so this year celebrates its 150th anniversary. It has been rebuilt extensively since with hydraulic pumps beneath being replaced by electric motors at the top. Anderton Boat Lift Visitor Centre website
Below - The Tata Chemicals works plant opposite the Anderton Boat Lift on the south bank of the Weaver Navigation. A huge chemical industry has grown up from the local salt mining. Salt is still extensively mined by pumping water into the mines and pumping the brine out, a development of the methods of the earlier works as seen at the Lion works.
I headed east alongside the Weaver Navigation. A short distance from the boat lift is a junction with Willow Brook where the navigable River Weaver heads south, a footbridge across Willow Brook leads to Carey Park which was built on former clay pits. A path follows the river but is separated from the riverside by trees. The path emerges in the Barron Quays retail development, built on recently stabilised land that previously suffered from subsidence due to the local salt mining.
I walked to the Weaver Hall Museum on London Road. This is a former workhouse building that has displays about the local industrial history. The Workhouse opened in 1839, workhouses were abandoned in 1930 and the building became a local authority building. Between 1948 and 1968 it served as an old people's home. Wards at the back of the building were demolished and replaced with a purpose built home but the buildings at the front were retained. Between 1981 and 2010 the remaining workhouse building became the Salt Museum, transferring from earlier museums adjoining the local library that date back to 1887. These days Lion Salt Works now better covers that side of local history amongst the local authority run museums allowing Weaver Hall to concentrate it's displays more on its former purpose as a workhouse as well as other aspects of local history, though naturally salt mining is still a major part of the displays. More information can be found on the museum’s website.
Below - A monument to local industrial history in the middle of Northwich.
Below - The former workhouse buildings of the Weaver Hall Museum.
Below - This small round building north of the Weaver Hall Museum off Weir Street contains a 1913 built pumping station. Earlier pumping stations would have been much larger as they would have had steam powered engines but this one used a Crossley Gas Engine. The pumping station has been replaced with the somewhat less attractive building alongside but tours are occasionally offered of the old building.
Below - Information board at the pumping station (click to enlarge).
Below - The viaduct carrying the railway over the River Weaver.
I walked to Northwich station on a path largely following the foot of the long viaduct that carries the railway over the river and much of the town.
Below - Northwich Station.
Below - Looking along the platforms, on the right the disused platform face can be seen on the line from Sandbach via Middlewich. The line survives but has not had a passenger service since the 1960s aside from occasional diverted trains.
Below - The service from Manchester to Chester (via Stockport) that still operates through Northwich, my train to head home.
