130 POTASH-MAKING IN ESSEX: A LOST RURAL INDUSTRY.
seen the potash going away in peck bags. Folkard would not sell it in smaller
quantities, not even to oblige his neighbours.
John Laurence, aged about 70 years, an inmate of Colchester Union House,
said that he formerly lived at Capel St. Mary, in Suffolk, and remembers a
"Potash" at Wenham, carried on by a man named Chaplin ; he knows nothing
further about it, except that he was assisted in the work by his wife.
John Chisnell, aged 76, now an inmate of Colchester Union House, but who
was born at Wenham, has been able to give me much information in reference to
the industry, and although his statement is connected with a Suffolk "Potash," I
give it here, as Wenham is but a short distance over the border, and Chisnell is
one of the very few people living who ever worked in one of these manufactories,
His statement is : He went to work at the "Potash" when he was seven years old,
beginning work thus early because his father, an agricultural labourer, had eight
children, and only earned eight shillings a week and was therefore obliged to make
all do something towards the housekeeping expenses. As Chisnell began work so
early and so many years have passed, he feels that he is not quite clear in all the
details of the manufacture, but he well remembers that there were three large tubs,
which were filled with ashes and that water was run through them all before it
went into the large vat in the ground ; in this vat was placed the wheat straw,
which was burned after it was quite saturated with the lye ; while this straw was
burning on the great hearth, other straw was being put into the lye and soaked,
and afterwards added to that straw already smouldering on the hearth. It was
never allowed to blaze. Before they replaced the exhausted ashes, it was usual to
again wash them, to remove any potash remaining, using the resulting weak lye
to treat the new ashes in the tubs. He also said, that, even after the ashes had
been washed, they were considered valuable for manurial purposes and were sent
for by the neighbouring farmers, to put on the land.
He used to go with his master collecting ashes for some miles around, and he
thinks the master paid 7d. a bushel for the best wood ashes. Ashes then were
plentiful, because so little coal was burned, and in his mother's house he never saw
coal burned. She had no stove, and always burned wood on the hearth. He has
often seen the ''black ashes" five inches thick on the hearth, after the firing was
done. During the firing, when the straw was nearly burned out, they kept rounding
it up with shovels until it was all consumed. He thinks the "black potash" fetched
about 8d. a pound, some being sold in the district, but the greater part went to
Ipswich, packed in peck bags. He also added, "there was no soda then."
Thomas Moulton, aged 75, formerly living at Lexden, but now in the
Colchester Union House, said : A man named Leatherdale, had a potash-works
near Suttons, Fordham, but Moulton does not remember his selling any of the
potash he made, as he believes Leatherdale used it all up in making soap, he being
a soap-boiler, as well as a potash maker.
John Baker, aged 78 years, another inmate of Colchester Union House, said :
At Bycknacre, near the Compasses, Woodham Ferris, there used to be a "Potash,''
but he did not know by whom it was carried on.
John Arthy, aged 85 years, an inmate of Colchester Union House, said :
There was, when he was a boy, a "Potash" in the low way, just below the old
Church, at Aldham. He does not know who worked it, but he remembers his cart
going round for ashes.
The information given below was obtained from aged persons not in a Union
House, and it may be worth recording, especially as the situation of many of the