Qualla: Lion Salt Works https://qualla.com/lion-salt-works en-us © 2026 Bendyline Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:40:15 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/q/p/lion-salt-works-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Lion Salt Works https://qualla.com/lion-salt-works Lion Salt Works: Introduction https://qualla.com/lion-salt-works/ Photo credit Chris Allen, CC BY-SA 2.0. For most of the twentieth century, ships left the docks of Liverpool and Birkenhead bound for Calabar, Lagos, Port Harcourt, Monrovia, Conakry, and Freetown, carrying a cargo that came not from the sea but from a small Cheshire village. The salt produced at the Lion Salt Works in Marston was light, flaky, and known on the West African coast as Lagos Salt. It cost more than its competitors, but it had a particular virtue: it did not clump or dissolve in the tropical humidity. By the 1950s, ninety per cent of everything boiled in the Lion's pans went to West Africa. Six generations of the Thompson family ran the works. The Biafran War, the military juntas that followed, and the rise of cheap Brazilian solar-evaporated salt brought the trade to an end. The fires went out in 1986, and the Lion Salt Works became the last open-pan salt works in Britain.

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Image: Chris Allen | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/q/p/lion-salt-works-wp/gcqp-lion-salt-works-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Lion Salt Works: The Joiner Who Became a Salt Master https://qualla.com/lion-salt-works/ Photo credit RLamb, Public domain. John Thompson Senior was born in 1799 and started his working life as a joiner, timber merchant, and brickyard owner in Northwich. He entered the salt trade in 1842 with a shipping and lighting business on the River Weaver, carrying salt to the ports at Liverpool and Birkenhead. ...

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Image: RLamb | Public domain

]]> Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/q/p/lion-salt-works-wp/gcqp-lion-salt-works-the-joiner-who-became-a-salt-master.mp3 0:06 2 full Lion Salt Works: Built Around a Hotel https://qualla.com/lion-salt-works/ Photo credit Julius (User:Juliux), CC BY-SA 3.0. John Thompson Junior retired to Eddisbury Hall in Macclesfield after the sale, but the family was not done with salt. In 1894 he and his son Henry Ingram Thompson bought the Red Lion Hotel in Marston and built a salt pan in its coal yard. Henry Ingram sank a brine shaft, raised a...

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Image: Julius (User:Juliux) | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/q/p/lion-salt-works-wp/gcqp-lion-salt-works-built-around-a-hotel.mp3 0:06 3 full Lion Salt Works: The West African Trade https://qualla.com/lion-salt-works/ Photo credit Stefan.p21 (Maciej Preś), CC BY-SA 4.0. After the Second World War, Henry Lloyd Thompson came home from the Royal Navy and joined the family business in 1947. He would run the salt works for the next four decades. In 1954 and 1965 he built two more pan and stove houses, numbers four and five. The trade focus shifted he...

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Image: Stefan.p21 (Maciej Preś) | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/q/p/lion-salt-works-wp/gcqp-lion-salt-works-the-west-african-trade.mp3 0:06 4 full Lion Salt Works: Saved From the Bulldozer https://qualla.com/lion-salt-works/ Photo credit Chris Allen, CC BY-SA 2.0. Vale Royal District Council bought the buildings to prevent demolition, and in 1993 the Lion Salt Works Trust was formed as a registered charity. A 2000 survey confirmed that the land around the works was stable enough to support restoration. Funds were raised gradually from DEFR...

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Image: Chris Allen | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/q/p/lion-salt-works-wp/gcqp-lion-salt-works-saved-from-the-bulldozer.mp3 0:06 5 full