I came across this site while I wandering along the north bank of the River Forth – and after last weekend’s excitement at the Paper Mill, this was a stroll in the sunshine … I was pretty surprised to find that there’s almost nothing about it on the web, given it’s a pleasant wee retreat from its industrial neighbours – the massive Longannet power station, and the Alloa glassworks.
The Kennet Pans were a pre-Industrial Revolution salt production complex, sitting on the shore of the Forth. Before the advent of refridgeration, salt was vital for preserving food for the table, and also for sailors travelling around the world. The salt workers at Kennet extracted salt from seawater using brine pans hung over coal fires. The coal mines which fed the saltworks have long since shut – even the modern mine at Longannet was mothballed a few years ago after it flooded – but the disused 200-year-old workings are still a hazard for the workers building the second Kincardine Bridge a few miles away – especially as no records of the mine locations exist.
Kennet lies in the valley of the Lower Forth, once the main centre of the marine salt industry in Scotland. Larger complexes lie to the east at Culross, but Kennet still contains the main components of a salt pan. The stone-built pan house or boiling house sits on a creek, ideal for a convenient supply of saltwater. The remains of a sluice system is hidden under the reeds. The interior of the pan house still contains the vaulted furnace area (it was all handstoked …) and the stone piers above on which the pan was supported. I’ve read that a Scottish pan was usually made of iron plates, and measured something like 18 feet by 9 feet, and was around one-and-a-half feet deep. Apparently it took 16 tons of coal to produce one ton of salt.
Stone pier which carried boiling pan
Circular recess in wall, and pocket for axle bearing
The furnace was stoked and emptied from the adjacent forehouse, which has a great circle inscribed in it … presumably for a steam engine which pumped seawater up into the boiling pan? The small square holes will have carried bearings of the engine. Other buildings were presumably used as store houses or “girnals” as they were known in Scots, and beyond them lies the river. The saltpans now sit in the Kennet Pans bird sanctuary, a sensitive salt marsh which extends out from the shore in a series of reedbeds split by pows (tidal creeks). The roofless buildings at Kennet lie undisturbed thanks to the nature reserve … and half-buried in the reedy foreshore is a steel scow, as river barges were known on the Forth. Timber piles stride out into the river, presumably the remains of a wharf from which the salt was exported.
The Kennet Pans were a pre-Industrial Revolution salt production complex, sitting on the shore of the Forth. Before the advent of refridgeration, salt was vital for preserving food for the table, and also for sailors travelling around the world. The salt workers at Kennet extracted salt from seawater using brine pans hung over coal fires. The coal mines which fed the saltworks have long since shut – even the modern mine at Longannet was mothballed a few years ago after it flooded – but the disused 200-year-old workings are still a hazard for the workers building the second Kincardine Bridge a few miles away – especially as no records of the mine locations exist.
Kennet lies in the valley of the Lower Forth, once the main centre of the marine salt industry in Scotland. Larger complexes lie to the east at Culross, but Kennet still contains the main components of a salt pan. The stone-built pan house or boiling house sits on a creek, ideal for a convenient supply of saltwater. The remains of a sluice system is hidden under the reeds. The interior of the pan house still contains the vaulted furnace area (it was all handstoked …) and the stone piers above on which the pan was supported. I’ve read that a Scottish pan was usually made of iron plates, and measured something like 18 feet by 9 feet, and was around one-and-a-half feet deep. Apparently it took 16 tons of coal to produce one ton of salt.
Stone pier which carried boiling pan
Circular recess in wall, and pocket for axle bearing
The furnace was stoked and emptied from the adjacent forehouse, which has a great circle inscribed in it … presumably for a steam engine which pumped seawater up into the boiling pan? The small square holes will have carried bearings of the engine. Other buildings were presumably used as store houses or “girnals” as they were known in Scots, and beyond them lies the river. The saltpans now sit in the Kennet Pans bird sanctuary, a sensitive salt marsh which extends out from the shore in a series of reedbeds split by pows (tidal creeks). The roofless buildings at Kennet lie undisturbed thanks to the nature reserve … and half-buried in the reedy foreshore is a steel scow, as river barges were known on the Forth. Timber piles stride out into the river, presumably the remains of a wharf from which the salt was exported.
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Sorry I digressed.
