Salinae was a Romano-British settlement and military site at the confluence of the Dane and Croco in modern Middlewich, named for the natural brine springs that made it one of the principal salt-producing centres of Roman Britain. A timber auxiliary fort was established here in the later first century A.D., probably during the Flavian campaigns associated with the consolidation of the Cornovii and the road network radiating from Chester (Deva), and occupation of the wider vicus continued into the fourth century, though the fort itself appears to have been short-lived.
Source: Pleiades — A Community-Built Gazetteer and Graph of Ancient Places. View the Pleiades record →
Its importance was overwhelmingly economic: Salinae was a major industrial producer of salt, a strategic commodity for the military supply chain, and it sat at a junction of roads linking Chester, Northwich (Condate), Manchester (Mamucium), and the legionary fortress at Wroxeter. The Ravenna Cosmography and Antonine Itinerary references to "Salinae" sites underline its identity as one of a small group of named salt towns.
Excavations, particularly at King Street and on the Kinderton side, have revealed brine kilns, lead salt pans, briquetage, timber-lined brine pits, and substantial vicus buildings, alongside evidence of the early fort (defensive ditches and timber structures) recovered in interventions from the 1960s onward and more recently by Gifford and the Middlewich Archae
Salinae was a Romano-British settlement and military site at the confluence of the Dane and Croco in modern Middlewich, named for the natural brine springs that made it one of the principal salt-producing centres of Roman Britain. It is recorded in the Pleiades gazetteer of ancient places as a fort site from the Roman period in Britain.
Salinae is classified as a Roman fort — a military site in the Pleiades ancient world gazetteer. Roman Britain's archaeology encompasses thousands of sites ranging from legionary fortresses and marching camps to villas, temples and towns.
Several Roman sites lie within a short distance, including Condate (8.2 km), Anderton Boat Lift, aqueduct, basins, meter building, toll houses and buried remains of salt chutes, inclined planes, the east basin and dockside features (9.9 km), Eaton (13.3 km). Aubrey Research maps over 2,200 Roman sites across Britain, drawn from the Pleiades ancient world gazetteer.
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