Owners,Occupiers and Others: Seventeenth Century Northwich (Paperback)

Synopsis
Northwich in the 17th century was a small market town of about six acres, concentrated on a plot of low-lying flat land at the confluence of the rivers Dane and Weaver, and surrounded by fields and meadows on the slopes of the neighbouring townships. Lying in the very heart of the county of Cheshire, it was a significant transport hub and trading centre. It had been an important salt-making site since Roman times and could be described as an industrial town in a pre-industrial age. The raw material - high quality brine - came from a pit on the banks of the Dane and was channelled along wooden troughs to 108 wich-houses where it was boiled in lead pans to extract the salt. The proprietors and entrepreneurs involved were subject to time-honoured complex rules that regulated when, where and how the salt could be made. Leading local historian Tony Bostock, whose family moved to the Northwich, Witton and Leftwich area from Davenham more than 300 years ago, has used a wealth of contemporary documentary sources to build up a detailed picture of life in Northwich during the 17th century. It was a particularly interesting period of history - an era of social, economic, political and religious change that affected the lives of every individual in some way. Plague, fires, flooding and the Civil War all left their mark on the town and its inhabitants. His painstakingly researched book looks at the residential, commercial and industrial sectors of the tiny borough, traces of which can still be discerned in its present-day layout. It examines how the town was governed and how the famous salt industry began to decline towards the end of the 17th century. The author follows the fortunes of individual families who owned or occupied wich-houses and, using wills and inventories, describes how the people of Northwich lived and worked. Fascinating appendices, tables and family trees contain information that will be invaluable to local and family history enthusiasts. To assist genealogists and local historians the book has been comprehensively indexed. The index can be consulted on-line, so that you can see if there is mention of a person, place or event of interest to you.

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