A HISTORY OF SALT-MAKING IN ESSEX. 197
In Thurstable Hundred, lying still further south, on the north
bank of the Blackwater Estuary, there were no fewer than twenty
salt-pans and one-half, of which three-and-one-half (and seven
others which had disappeared) had existed in the time of the
Confessor. Tolleshunt D'Arcy, Tolleshunt Major, Layer Marney,
and Heybridge had one each; Goldhanger had one-and-a-half;7
Great Totham had two; Little Totham had three; while
Tollesbury had six (five of these being in the manor of Tolles-
hunt Guisnes, where there had been no fewer than twelve pans
in the time of the Confessor). Further, somewhere in this
Hundred, the King had four pans, which were in charge of the
Sheriff of the County. Most of these pans (probably about
twelve of them) were on Tollesbury Creek (an inlet merely), and
the remainder on the north side of the Blackwater Estuary.
The only other Essex salt-pan mentioned in Domesday Book
was at the opposite extremity of the county, namely at
Wanstead, in Becontree Hundred. The locality is not one in
which a salt-pan might have been expected; yet the pan in
question had existed since the time of King Edward the Con-
fessor.7A Wanstead lies mainly upon the River Roding, but it is
scarcely credible that salt-water can ever have come up that river
thus far. In all probability, therefore, the salt-pan was in the
semi-detached portion of the parish (some 381/2 acres in extent)
which abutted on the River Lea, and was connected with the
rest of the parish by a long narrow strip, known as Wanstead
"Slip" or "Water slip."8 The right to this "Water-slip" was
formerly guarded very jealously by the parish authorities, but
later it became a source of trouble, and it has now been merged
in adjacent parishes. In early days, the salt water may have
come up the Lea to this point. The only other possible solution
is that the so-called salt-pan was a salt refinery of some kind,
but there is no evidence in support of this.8A
From the foregoing, it would appear that, in Norman times,
salt-making in Essex was confined practically to the three
Hundreds mentioned above (namely, Tendring, Winstree, and
7 The other moiety belonged, no doubt, to some other parish. The rights of the two
parishes were satisfied, probably, by dividing either the produce or the profits.
7a See Victoria Hist, of Essex, i, p. 438.
8 For this suggestion, I am indebted to the kindness of our Vice-President, Mr. Walter
Crouch, of Wanstead.
8a As Professor Meldola has pointed out to me, a century ago there was a Salt's Green in
or a little to the south of Leytonstone, but there is nothing to show that it had any connection
with salt-making. It does not appear on modern maps.