Restoration Works Blog

The restoration works blog describes works being completed for Cheshire West and Chester Council.

Works start May 2012.

Anticipated Start

Work on the restoration of the Lion Salt Works might start in November, 2011.
Visit the new web site set up by Cheshire West and Chester Council.
Lion Salt Works web site.
A new site is being set up for the Lion Salt Works Trust also. The Trust has now handed back its lease on the site to the Council.
Because the Trustees failed to renew their domain name the original web site is no longer controlled by the Lion Salt Works Trust. Link to the old Lion Salt Works Trust web site

New web link at CW&C

The former Salt Museum is now rebranded as the Weaver Hall Museum.
A link to a page about the Lion Salt Works Project is -
www.fowhm.org.uk/the-lion-salt-works/
The Lion Salt Works Trust is expected to revamp its web site to reflect their current role in the project.

Winter Snow Jan 2010

Pictures of Lion Salt Works in the snow, which has been here since 5th January. Awaiting the thaw so that we can plant the bluebells and daffodil bulbs donated to us by The Mersey Forest team.

Hedging and Trees in the Butterfly Garden

The first trees and hedging are being planted in the Butterfly Garden.

This project is funded by INEOS Enterprises through the UK Government's Landfill Communities Fund (previously known as the Landfill Tax Credit Scheme). The grant is administered by The Mersey Forest.
http://www.ineoschlor.com/socialresponsibility/landfill.shtml

40 hedging plants have been provide through The Mersey Forest from FOUNDATION a climate fund for the Northwest.

The main buddlea plants will be planted in the spring with the ground cover plants also favourites with butterflies and moths.

These shubs and taller trees will provide the architecture and colour in the winter.

New Gates for Lion Salt Works

The final piece of painting to our front gates was completed this lunchtime, with the Lion Salt Works lettering being picked out in white.

Lionel Visits End of Enabling Works

Lionel was on holiday last week so has only just been able to upload his visit to the Lion Salt Works to meet the William Anelay's team on 5th November before they left site.
He was able to pose for pictures and walk around the site and see how it has changed over the previous 15 weeks.
Some before and after views will be posted in the next few days.
Cheshire West and Chester Council will hold meeting at the end of November to establish how the project to restore the whole site will be taken forward.

WEEK 15 - Day 59 End of Enabling Works

Today is the last main work day of the Enabling Works. We still have a few tidying up jobs to complete, but William Anelays Ltd will hand back the site to Cheshire West and Chester Council on Monday 9 November 2009.
Lionel is on holiday from today but will post updates on his return. In particular look out for the new entrance gates.
Many thanks to all our contractors and sub-contractors for helping the work programme be completed. It was a daunting task but has been completed with grateful thanks and appreciation. Lionel would also like to extend a special thank you to Site Manager, David Marsh who kept everything running smoothly, on time and with great humour and dedication to achieving a first rate job. A full list of all who participated in these Enabling Works will be posted later.
Thank you.
Despite the rain on this morning we got a great send off with a rainbow over the Brine Tank. We all look forward to starting Phase 2 - the full restoration works - in 2010.

WEEK 15 - Day 58 Views from the Garden

Most of the contractor's work today has been all about moving plant and machinery off site. This extended into the early evening dusk now that the hour has changed as we move from summer time to winter. We also made further preparations for the erection of our entrance gates. Meanwhile Sue, Isabel and Tim have been continuing the preparations for our Butterfly Garden, which helps us look forward to next spring when the main garden planting will take place - and we hope to be able to make a firm announcement about the timetable for the full restoration works.

The garden will feature buddlias in partnership with George Martin and Butterfly Conservation-Peaks and Plains.

The design is by Sue Beesley and Isabel Brooke with help from Tim

Links : - http://www.lodgelanenursery.co.uk/

The garden is funded through a Landfil Grant donated by ineos-Chlor and administered by the Mersey Forest.

WEEK15 - Day 57 Final Preparations

As our Enabling Works draw to and end we received fresh deliveries for our Butterfly Garden this morning. 15 tons of soil improver were tipped at the entrance to the emerging garden. Sue Beesley and Isobel Brooke will distribute this through the flower beds tomorrow and make preparations to spread the top surface gravel onto the paths.



More details on the garden in tomorrow's posting.



The racking in our timber store has been filled with timbers from the dismantled Stove House 5. It is also holding our new front gates over night as the post holes are prepared for the concrete supports.
The framework to attach the wrapping sheets are almost completed. The green material gives the interior an unusual, and artistic light.

WEEK 15 - Day 56 Painting, Wrapping, a Delivery and a Visit

Our warm and dry autumn weather broke over the weekend with heavy rain, cooler air and strong wind. To give the salt pan time to be cleaned down and dried off the painters from George Boocock Decorators Ltd moved from painting Pan 5 to painting our new fence.
All the leaves from our mountain ash trees were stripped off leaving only a few berries for the starlings.

Phil and Simon carried on constructing frames to attach sheeting to in order to keep out the worst of the winter weather. Much to our surprise the new delivery of sheeting material (which comes from Sweden!) is green and not clear. even though the supplier states that it is the same as the first delivery!

Manufactured in Manchester our new steel gates have started to be delivered for installation later in the week.
They will be painted black after they have been set in new concrete bases.

The work to install them wil feature during the rest of the week.

Henry Thompson dropped in at lunchtime to look at the progress since his last visit. He was taken through the warehouse floors on the new scaffold access platforms. It is some years since he last stood in front of the crushing mill located in Warehouse 4. Henry dismantled this mill from its earlier location in Warehouse 2.
He brought with him a faded black and white photograph of himself standing in front of Stove House 5 during its construction. Henry is shown standing in front of the roofing boards which are stacked ready for nailing in place on the roof. Click on the images to enlarge them.

WEEK 14 - Day 55 Dismantling West Gable & Final Work to Stove House 5

The unsafe sections of the west gable of Stove house 1 were dismantled today. The area will be protected by sheeting over the winter.

The curved section of wall may incorporate the original garden wall of the entrance to the Red Lion Hotel, after which the salt works was named can be seen more clearly now. At this height the wall curves and has a sleight batter as it rises from the road level. it is also one and a half bricks wide.

The final remnants of Stove House 5 were removed from site this afternoon, all the parts not being saved for reuse that is.

There will be some before-and-after photographs posted next week to show how the site has changed over the last fourteen weeks.

WEEK 14 - Day 54 More Cleaning, Digging and Dismantling

Having drafted in a hydraulic pick the base of Pan House 5 finally gave in and was broken up ready for removal. The last lorry movements carrying the debris will leave for the landfill site tomorrow.

The gable of Warehouse 1 is now being carefully dismantled with each section of brick being stored on separate pallets. The wall has been repaired over many years - it was part of the original works dating to 1894 but has been rebuilt and a loading doorway bricked up. Each part of its history can be read by looking carefully at the different bricks and mortar sections. The inner and outer bricks from each phase are being stacked separately so that they can be rebuilt in the full restoration phase later next year.

As the salt works expanded Henry Ingram Thompson constructed a new Pan House and Stove House along the edge of Ollershaw Lane, joining it to the earlier warehouse by cutting out a section of the roof on the south side. This image is taken from within the much larger Warehouse 3, looking north to the roof structure of Warehouse 1. The gable being dismantled is to the left, fronting Ollershaw Lane.

Further shot blasting to clean the salt pan removed from Pan House 5 took place using recycled glass pellets, so that it can be painted. The weather is fantastic with warm autumn sunshine, excellent for getting all these final jobs completed.
A careful evaluation of the whole site was also undertaken today to identify any further pockets of contamination that might still be on site.

WEEK 14 - Day 53 Fencing and Wrapping

Preparations were made today for the new gates at the entrance to the salt works. A new wooden fence was installed between our entrance and our neighbours and the vegetation was cut back to help with the installation of the gates, which will be erected next Monday. The fence butts up to the Smithy building, where the salt pans, salt tools and salt boxes were made and repaired. The new fence will be shown next week.

External elevations were wrapped to help protect them over the winter from wind and rain. This the east elevation of Pan House 4.

Electric chipping hammers are having a hard time breaking up hard, dried salt deposits within the stove area of Stove House 1.

The base of Pan House 5 is also defying demolition. A third, larger machine was beaten into submission this afternoon - look out for how its special attachment copes tomorrow !!

WEEK 14 - Day 52 Painting Salt Pan 5 Starts

Today the protective paint was started to be applied to the cleaned salt pan removed from Pan House 5.
This is the undercoat after which two top coats of a zinc paint will be applied.

You can see that the side end plate at the stove end of the pan dates to its earliest phase when the plates were still being riveted to the angle iron which attaches the side plates to the bottom plates (left). The images upper right shows that the side plates are welded

The lifting rings, which enabled the pan to be lifted using a jigger arm are also welded to the side of the pan. The detail (bottom right) shows the rivets joining the end plates, again at the stove end of the salt pan.

WEEK 13 - Day 51 Clearing Salt, Stove House 5 and Laying Paths

Salt can set like concrete once it gets into the fabric of a building and is baked hot and stays dry.
Within stove Hose 1 we had to chip out the remaining salt with a percussion hammer.
The flue walls in this area have been robbed out many years ago but the remains of the walls indicate the layout of the flues and ditches which ducted the hot fumes from the Pan House to the chimney built on Ollershaw Lane.



Meanwhile the big digger spent a fourth day removing the ash, cinders and flue walls from the dismantled Stove House 5.
Over 100 tons of material has been removed from site. The materials which made up the infill of the stove house were themselves waste products of the Lion Salt Works. Henry Thompson used waste cinders deposited at the south side of the site that were raked from the earlier pan houses over decades of salt making.

Alongside all the dismantling and removal of contaminants we are also being constructive and looking to the future. Sue Beesley and Isabel Brookes have begun the creative landscaping that will transform the south west corner of our salt works into a tranquil butterfly garden in partnership with George Martin and the Butterfly Conservation gardening volunteers.

WEEK 13 - Day 50 Dismantling Stove 5

Work continued to dismantle Stove 5. In total 600 tons of ash, cinders and bricks have been removed since Monday. The position of the outer North wall is shown by the far left ranging rod.

WEEK 13 - Day 49 Cleaning Pan 5 and Starting Butterfly Garden

The clearance of the ash and cinders from Stove House 5 continued. There should be 18 lorry loads removed over the day, each carrying an average of 17 tons a trip. Salt also continued to be removed from Stove 1.

Two new activities started today. Cleaning of the salt pan moved from Pan House 5 started with a manual knocking of of surface debris. Apologies are due to all our neighbours for the resulting banging and hammering. this must have been what it was like when the salt pans were in use. The traditional practice was to 'pick' a salt pan pm a Monday morning to remove build up of pan scale and salt from the previous weeks salt making, so that fresh brine start to be heated for the new week.

The underside of the pan shows many original rivetted plates which have had new plates welded over the top. It has a patchwork appearance of overlying metal plates.

In the south west corner a cotter pin and patch was still in place. Phil was able to gentle tap the wedge out and take the drain patch apart.

We also began laying the paths for a recreational area to the south west of the site, which will be planted as a buddlea garden. This is funded by a landfill grant contribution made by Ineos Chlor via the Mersey Forest team. The paths are being edged today and will have hardcore laid over a membrane tomorrow.

WEEK 13 - Day 48 Stove House 1 and Stove House 5

Activities today involve dismantling three areas - the gable of Warehouse 1, salt from within Stove 1 and the stove area of Stove House 5.

To carry out the work safely external cladding has been erected along the side of the building.

Portable conveyor belting was installed to easy the manual handling of the salt debris from the stove area.

You can now really see that the stove area ran off from the Pan House at the first floor level. The machine tearing up the ash and cinders is really working hard because salt and brine has soaked into the fabric of the brickwork and the cinder base, setting like concrete in the high heat of the salt making process.