23-574: The New Cheshire Salt Works Ltd was a salt manufacturer formerly located in Wincham , north east of Northwich in Cheshire, UK. Run by the Stubbs family until its acquisition by British Salt, it operated between around 1923 and 2006. The company itself continues to exist as a subsidiary of British Salt. It produced white or brine salt from naturally occurring underground brine using natural or wild pumping. The salt
46-496: A borehole . Such natural or wild brine pumping differs from controlled brine pumping, where water is pumped underground into rock to dissolve rock salt deposits. The process has historically been associated with subsidence , which has been a major problem in the Northwich area. The brine was purified by treatment with sodium carbonate and lime, and the salt extracted using a closed-pan partial vacuum evaporation method. The technique
69-411: A museum on the history of salt production in Cheshire. A butterfly garden in the grounds is managed by Butterfly Conservation. The population history of the parish is: The village is home to Wincham Community Primary School. Witton Albion Football Club is located here; it moved to Wincham Park in 1989. Local bus services are operated by D&G Bus and Warrington's Own Buses . Routes connect
92-521: A relatively low volume of a high-purity product that was not economic at the two large works. The use of natural pumping declined after the Second World War, and mostly ceased during the 1970s, but New Cheshire continued to use the process. From the mid-1980s until its closure in 2006, it was the only salt works in the UK to use the natural brine pumping method. New Cheshire was the third-largest salt producer in
115-642: Is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . British Salt British Salt Limited is a United Kingdom -based chemical company that produces pure white salt . The company is owned by Tata Chemicals Europe after a buy out from private equity company LDC in April 2010. It is based in Middlewich , Cheshire , employs 125 people, and produces approximately 800,000 tonnes (880,000 tons) of pure white salt every year. LDC bought British Salt from its previous owners, US Salt Holdings LLC in 2007, investing £35m in
138-448: Is suitable for use in human food, as well as a variety of other purposes including animal food, such as salt licks , water softening tablets, dyes and textile production, such as leather preparation. New Cheshire Salt Works was the only company in the UK to produce a very pure product with less than 0.01% water content for use in the pharmaceutical industry. This required the plant to be shut down and cleaned, as well as further drying of
161-571: The Cheshire Plain . The Trent and Mersey Canal runs through the parish. The whole area around Wincham was the site of salt mining for many years, with the Lion Salt Works at nearby Marston . This industry finally ceased in the village in 2005 when New Cheshire Salt Works was bought by British Salt and closed down the following year. In 2015 the Lion Salt Works re-opened to provide
184-713: The Competition Commission in May but allowed to go ahead on 8 November 2005. Although the works had been profitable in 2003 and 2004, the Commission ruled that it would soon be rendered uneconomic by a number of factors, particularly increased energy prices. British Salt announced the closure of the Wincham works a few weeks later, and it closed in June 2006. At the time of closure it employed 60 people. The works site, an area of 198 acres,
207-528: The 1850s salt works were established in Marston, and in the 1860s and 1870s in the adjacent village of Wincham , predominantly following the line of the canal. The Salt Branches Railway connected Wincham to Northwich from 1867. By the late 19th century, Wincham was a flourishing salt-manufacturing location, with several open-pan salt works as well as rock salt mines. Many of the salt works in Wincham were short lived, but some amalgamated to form Wincham Salt Works, which
230-490: The 198-acre (0.80 km ) site sold to Chantry Developments. The salt is extracted from strata that lie approximately 180 metres (590 ft) below ground. Bore holes are drilled into the strata and water is forced down to dissolve the salt. The resulting brine solution is pumped along 5 km (3.1 mi) of pipes back to the surface and direct into the Middlewich factory for purification and water evaporation to produce
253-420: The 2000s, the works was using a small Svenson system with three evaporator chambers (termed "effects"). During the 1960s, most of the smaller vacuum plants closed and two companies, Staveley Industries and Cerebos, merged to form British Salt . By the 1970s, there were only three companies using the technology, ICI , British Salt and the much smaller New Cheshire Works, which used its small evaporator to produce
SECTION 10
#1733094204361276-472: The New Cheshire Works was one of the early companies to adopt the vacuum evaporation method, importing an evaporator in the 1930s. Described as "magnificent" by journalist Mark Kurlansky , the company's first evaporator had three chambers; it had an Art Deco design, and was decorated with stripes in dark and pale wood, with brass fittings. The company updated the evaporator in the 1950s and the 1990s. In
299-425: The UK in 1986, after ICI and British Salt. At that date, the annual salt output exceeded 50,000 tons, of which a quarter was sold to consumers under the brandname "Selva". The vacuum process used at New Cheshire was more expensive than that used by other British manufacturers, as well as European manufacturers exporting to the UK. The process produced pure vacuum-dried salt with less than 0.1% water content, which
322-472: The UK still to use the natural brine pumping method. After a rock salt bed was discovered north of Northwich in 1670, Northwich swiftly overtook Nantwich and Middlewich to become the largest salt producer in Cheshire. Mining began in the village of Marston in 1781, a few years after the opening of the North Staffordshire (later Trent and Mersey ) Canal, which was used to transport the salt. In
345-452: The company. A management team has taken a minority stake. US Salt had bought British Salt from its previous owners, Staveley Industries plc in 2000 for £80m. In 2005, British Salt acquired New Cheshire Salt Works Limited , known as NCSW Limited. This acquisition was referred to the Competition Commission who approved the purchase. Since the purchase the NCSW site in Wincham has been closed and
368-488: The pure salt. It is estimated that there are salt reserves sufficient for 200 years. The main uses for the salt products include: During the severe weather experienced in the UK in February 2009, British Salt also started to supply low-grade salt for de-icing of roads, after local authorities announced they were running very low on salt used for gritting due to the unexpected weather. This article about an English company
391-416: The pure vacuum-dried salt with hot-air driers. In 2005, the works could produce up to 80,000 tonnes a year, and was operating at close to capacity; the total annual white salt production in the UK was estimated at a million tonnes. New Cheshire was then one of the last three commercial salt producers in the UK. The company was sold that year to British Salt, in an acquisition that was investigated by
414-520: The village with Northwich, Knutsford , Lostock Gralam and Warrington . The nearest National Rail services can be accessed from Northwich and Lostock Gralam railway stations, which are stops on the Mid-Cheshire Line . Northern Trains operate generally hourly stopping services in both directions between Manchester Piccadilly , Stockport and Chester ; on Sundays, the service reduces to two-hourly. This Cheshire location article
437-603: Was adapted from the sugar industry, and had first been applied to salt extraction in 1887 in Silver Springs, New York . First tried commercially in the UK as early as 1901, several British manufacturers started up vacuum evaporator plants using a small Mirlees-type evaporator in parallel with their open-pan operations after the First World War. James Stubbs had learned about the method of vacuum evaporation in Michigan in 1905, and
460-412: Was extracted by vacuum evaporation and was of a high quality. It was used for human consumption under the brandname "Selva" and in the pharmaceutical industry; New Cheshire was the only British company to supply salt for pharmaceutical use. In its later years, New Cheshire was the biggest of the few remaining family-owned salt producers. From the mid-1980s until its closure, it was the only salt works in
483-450: Was in Wincham at SJ676754 , to the north east of the Trent and Mersey Canal. It had two chimneys in red brick, one marked with their brand "Selva" in capitals. By 1982, New Cheshire was the only salt works remaining in Wincham, the nearby open-pan Sunbeam Salt Works having closed in the early 1970s. Naturally occurring underground brine from the Wincham brinefield was pumped to the surface via
SECTION 20
#1733094204361506-525: Was located on the site of the New Cheshire Works in 1877. It was sold to the Salt Union in 1888, and demolished shortly afterwards. The Stubbs family had a history in the Cheshire salt business dating back to the early 18th century, and had owned salt works near Northwich in the 19th century. The New Cheshire Salt Works was founded in 1922 or 1923 by Alfred Stubbs and other members of the Stubbs family, and remained in that family for five generations. The factory
529-439: Was purchased by a development company early in 2007, and the site has since been demolished and redeveloped. Some of the company's records are archived by Cheshire Archives and Local Studies. Sources Wincham Wincham is a village and civil parish in the unitary authority of Cheshire West and Chester and the ceremonial county of Cheshire , England. It is located about 3 miles (4.8 km) north of Northwich in
#360639