Burtle Salterns

Roman salterns around Burtle, Somerset

Since the mid 19th century lots of mounds producing Roman pottery have been noted around Burtle in the Brue valley. They are now known to be the remains of a huge Roman pottery industry operating on hundreds of sites in the 3rd and 4th centuries AD around a saltmarsh in central Somerset.

Salt water was channelled from the tidal creeks into round tanks where the sediment was allowed to settle out leaving clear brine. This was then heated in open lead trays that were raised on clay pedestals over a simple clay hearth heated by peat cut from the inland bogs. The water evaporated to leave pure salt. The lead was probably from Roman mines on the Mendips. The saltern mounds themselves were made of ashes, sediment from the settling tanks, pottery and broken briquetage (the mixture of clay and straw used to make the hearth walls and pedestals). The salt may have been taken away in woven baskets and transported by sea over long distances along the coast.

The remains of numerous clay moulds for casting silver denarii have been found in the area of the salterns showing that there was also a sideline in forging being carried out by the salt-makers in the 220�s and 230�s AD. By the late 4th century the mounds were abandoned and began to be covered in alluvium from a salt marsh that remained for another millenium.