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Heart of Albion

Dead good evidence for eighteenth century trade routes in the Vale

The following discussion between myself and the fictional Simon Danser is from a free PDF called Conversations in Churchyads: A field guide to the social history of memorials.

Grantham churchyard. Most of these gravestones are made from Charnwood slates. Only ones with smooth backs are Welsh slate.

The backs of Charnwood slates are almost always uneven. And the colour is more variable than Welsh slate. Just a few Charnwood slates are pale green, which was more desirable. Most of the green slate is thought to have come from the quarries at Groby.

    'While I understand the importance of lichen, it does make it even more difficult than usual to read the dates.'

'But you know which ones are from Charnwood just by looking at the backs.'

    'Eh?'

'Should have mentioned it before. The so-called “Swithland slate” – usually from quarries actually in parishes adjoining Swithland itself, not to mention another couple at Groby – doesn't cleave as well as Welsh slate. The backs of Welsh slates are almost as flat as the fronts. But not so with the Charnwood slates. About the 1830s at least one of the Charnwood quarries did start sawing the slate into slabs. But very few of those slabs ended up as gravestones.'

    'What else were slabs of slate used for, apart from roofs of course?'

Cheese press base from Burton on the Wolds. Photograph by Peter Shaw.

'Slabs in pantries and dairies. And for cheese presses. Until about twenty years ago there was a set of urinals in a gents toilet made from slate. But that got ripped out and replaced with stainless steel.'

    'So at a guess, just looking at the backs, I'd say there was about two hundred Charnwood slate gravestones here at Grantham.'

'Easily. And we don't know if any have been removed to make it easier to cut the grass.'

    'From those where it's easy to read the date they are from the 1730s to the 1830s. But from the 1840s onwards Welsh slate takes over totally.'

'What happened in the 1840s Simon?'

    'The early railways joined up into a national network. And Grantham was slam bang on what is now the East Coast Mainline. And the Welsh slate quarries famously took full advantage of the railways once north Wales was part of that network.'

Hurst almshouses, Grantham.

'And the Charnwood quarries couldn't compete on price. Nor on supplying to standard sizes. And Welsh slates were thinner so needed less carts to transport. And the roof timbers could be lighter too. Speaking of Charnwood slate roofs, this impressive edifice, the Hurst Almshouses, was built soon after 1674 when Dr Hurst died. And it has a Charnwood slate roof. Presumably most or all the slates are from the 1670s.'

    'If nothing else it indicates that in the 1670s substantial quantities of slate were being transported from the Charnwood Forest to Grantham. And that's quite a distance, especially in the days of horse and carts. How far is it?'

'About thirty miles. But there is a direct route.'

    'Ah ha! Don't tell me there's a Roman road... '

The Salters Way. More details here.

'Only part of it is a Roman road, the part from where the route crosses the River Soar at Barrow on Soar, then crosses the Fosse Way – now the A46 – and follows the ironstone ridge to Goadby Marwood where there was Iron Age and Roman iron ore extraction and iron working. The route continues towards Grantham via Croxton Kerrial. Just to the east of Croxton the main road continues into Grantham. But the traditional route skirts south of the town, crosses the River Witham at Saltersford, then becomes the A52 through Threckingham to Boston and Kings Lynn.'

    '”Saltersford” is an intriguing name.'

'And a very apt one as the route from Barrow to Boston is still known as the Salters Way. Its one of a number of salt ways from east Leicestershire into the Fens.'

    'When did they stop using it for salt?'

'The 1840s.'

    'Yes, silly me, the railway network.'

'And salt had just started being mined in Cheshire. And that was way cheaper than the brine pit method used on the coast.'

    'So until the 1840s there would have been a steady stream of carts coming from the east coast with salt. Presumably cheese, pork pies, bacon were being made in large quantities in Leicestershire – and Nottinghamshire too. So the carters deliver or sell their salt in market towns or Leicester itself. And then are looking for a return load to add to their profits. Not too many options but slate for roofs – and other applications such as gravestones – would be more profitable than returning empty.'

'Yes, that's what I deduced too. Though I had the benefit of David Ramsey's insight that Charnwood slates in north Northamptonshire churchyards were return loads for limestone from Northamptonshire quarries being taken to Leicester. Just one weak spot in your insight into the Charnwood slate being brought along the Salters Way to Gratham.'

    'What's that?'

'It only got as far as Grantham. What did the carters buy in Grantham to take to Boston, Kings Lynn and such like?'

    'No idea.'

'Neither had I. But the noted Grantham historian John Manterfield put me right. It was malt. Grantham was one of the major producers of malted barley for brewing. It was the return load along the Nottingham to Grantham canal – the main cargo was coal from the Erewash valley which was needed to produce the malt.'

Navvies.

'That's a wicked trade route. Salt – until 1840 valuable and undoubtedly profitable – comes westwards, the profits are used the buy Charnwood slate – presumably from a stone merchant – sold to another stone merchant in Grantham and then the carts reloaded with malt. Where the people of the Fens especially thirsty folks?'

'Can't speak for all of them. But at the time we're talking about there were still small armies of navvies draining the Fens. They ate and slept in temporary camps. You can bet any money you like there was no reliable drinking water.'

    'Those navvies were burning several thousand calories a day. It isn't possible to eat enough food in an evening to put back that amount of energy. But a few pints of ale do contain sufficient calories. And take away some of the aches and pains so you get a good night's sleep. I can envisage a great deal of malt was needed to keep those lads “watered”.'

1890s Leicester to Ashby map. The historic route is coloured red. The approximate location of the Groby slate quarries is coloured blue.

'Remember I mentioned some slate pits at Groby? That's right at the side of the Leicester to Ashby de la Zouch road. Which happens to run through the really early coal mining area – what became Coalville in the 1870s. We know that Leicester had a high demand from coal from medieval times onwards. So the carts carrying coal could have collected slates from Groby on the way back to Ashby, where presumably there would have been a stone merchant or two.'

    'So just by thinking about what was a plausible return load for the salt carts adds up to some curious insights.'

'You've missed an even more “curious insight” Simon.'

    'What's that?'

'The salt started out as a return load for all the wool being taken from the East Midlands to the east coast ports in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.'

    'And those “wool ways” would also have been used by pilgrims to places such as Walsingham.'

'So, if I've got things right, it was initially wool one way and salt on the way back. But after the wool trade dried up salt was still needed so slate and malt made up a tripartite trade route.'

    'Sounds like it could have been quite profitable. And, to all intents and purposes, the only actual evidence we have is the dates on these slate gravestones. Well, also the fact that the memorials are where they are.'

The incised lettering on gravestones was probably coloured white or gold. This wall memorial inside Cropwell Bishop church gives an indication of how outdoor memorials looked when new.

Slates in the Vale

Most churchyards in the Vale have at least a few early eighteenth century Charnwood slate gravestones. In the west of the Vale, especially around Hickling and as far as Langar, the majority of pre-1840s memorials used slate from Charnwood.

Even in the eastern part of the Vale there are examples of early memorials. For example, a gravestone at Elton on the Hill commemorates someone who did in 1703. And Whatton in the Vale churchyard has plenty of well-carved slates.

Sources

Alex Hando, 2022, Cleft from the Hills, Heart of Albion; online at www.hoap.co.uk/cleft_from_the_hills.pdf

David Ramsey, 2002, 'Slate quarrying at Groby and Swithland', Leicestershire Industrial Heritage Society Bulletin No.17; online at specialcollections.le.ac.uk/digital/collection/p15407coll7/id/131

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