by Peter Solan, Trustee of the Lion Salt Works Museum

AS well as the other famous mines and salt-workings surrounding the Lion Salt Works, an old map of the Northwich area shows isolated shafts and boreholes which were drilled speculatively; sometimes brine was found, sometimes not.

An unfortunate Mr Parks, for example, sank three bore-holes. The first was successful; he sold this to Messrs Rayner and Howard. The second was dry; a failure. The third, in a field near Marston, rapidly filled up with brine, but so weak (2oz, compared with the desired 38oz plus) that it was not economic to exploit it.

Moreover, Mr Parks “had to pay damages for one horse and two cows, the cows having been poisoned by eating red lead, and the horse tumbled into the hole at the top of the shaft, and had to be destroyed….” (1)

Messrs Raynor and Howard had more success with their borehole. It had been drilled in 1912-13, but seems to have lain idle for some years.

It was in July 1922 when Mr Calder, Salt Union Engineer, was asked to install a pumping plant. Unfortunately over the years rubbish had been dumped down the shaft and formed a blockage inside the tubing 126 feet from the top, floating on the brine.

At first the only solution was to do some “fishing” with a “spear rod 18 feet long, 1¼” diameter, one end being pointed with two fork tails, attached to a wire rope.” After numerous attempts, “several pieces of wood and a shovel head were drawn up.”

The shaft remained choked. Later, after many wearying hours operating the winch, a few more pieces of wood appeared, but the 24 inch cylinder remained firmly blocked.

At length, the men themselves proposed to go down to clear the blockage. Rather than lowering a man on a “horse” or chair, management had a cage constructed, narrow enough to pass down the 24-inch wide tubes, safe enough to hold a man.

But it was a perilous enterprise; the man in the cage would have to be closely monitored, and brought to the surface every half hour “in case he was overcome by any foul gas....”

“Removing the material took a considerable time,” reported Mr Calder. The picture shows the heroic Mr Herbert Bannister, with some of the debris removed from the shaft.

Pumping began on February 5, 1923, the brine being sent a distance of 4,720 feet to the Victoria Works and the Adelaide Mine.

The Salt Union Notes on Northwich Brine Area record a similar episode reported in The Children’s Newspaper (7.10.22): “One of the United States oil companies recently dropped a huge bushing, or hollow metal cylinder, down one of its wells, blocking its drills. Officials… called for volunteers to go down and hook a cable on to the bushing to pull it out. A man appeared who was willing to undertake the task, and made six separate trips before a coupling was effected, but he did it, and the well was saved.” (2)

Heroic indeed. And Mr Herbert Bannister and his colleagues did not even wear a hard hat…..

(1) The Salt Union Ltd., Notes on Northwich Brine Area Vol III P. 486

(2) Ibid P. 472