SALT PIGS were ceramic pots with large mouths on the side so that the salt was easily accessible to the cook but was still covered over to protect it from the kitchen elements.
As we are unexpectedly discovering, 125 years ago, it was quite a thing to give a woman a salt pig with her name on it.
First, we had a pig (above) that was dedicated to Mrs JS Watkins of Darlington, on November 1, 1890. Brilliant detective work by our readers has discovered that the owner was Mrs John Southern Watkins, known to her friends as Alice, of Gladstone Street, and we think she and her husband emigrated to Borneo, an Asian island shared between Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei, around 1900.
READ MORE: THE FULL STORY OF THE DARLINGTON SALT PIG
Now Mary Wright has been in touch from Barnard Castle, as she has an almost identical salt pig – although to her it is a “salt pot” (“pygge” is an old northern word for a pot, and so the two names are pretty much the same).
Mary’s salt pot has the same brown wishbone design on it but it bears the maiden name of her great-grandmother: “Alice Bousfield, Blue Cap, 1894” (above).
Alice grew up on Blue Cap Farm at Spital on the A66 near Bowes. Spital is the last run of properties before the A66 climbs to Stainmore and Cumbria – there was a 12th Century hospital there and that theme of hospitality continued with Spital’s roadside hostelries, including the Bowes Moor Inn, the Coach and Horses and possibly the Blue Cap.
We think Blue Cap was named after a famous foxhound from Cheshire which in 1763 won a 500 guinea race at Newmarket and became a northern hero. There is a theory that the name of the Spotted Dog pub, which is about to reopen in High Coniscliffe, is a reference to Blue Cap as there used to be another pub in that village that was called Hark Unto Blue Cap.
Alternatively, one of those wonderfully bleak northern Pennines that surround Spital may just have had a blue cap to it…
“I know for a fact that my salt pot was made at Wetheriggs pottery, which is near Penrith,” says Mary. “I went over there in the 1970s to see if I could find out more.”
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Wetheriggs was a well known pottery that opened in 1860 at Clifton Dykes right beside the Stainmore railway line from Barnard Castle. The pottery used coal to fire its kilns and work its machinery.
When Mary visited it was a tourist attraction producing artisan pottery, with a visitor centre, although it closed 20 years ago.
Mary has found an old Wetheriggs’ brochure advertising the personalised salt pot with the brown wishbone design as one of the pottery’s popular lines.
Mary’s pot was one of a pair with Alice’s name on. The other one descended down another branch of the family and is now in the Bowes Museum.
“The pot has always been there throughout my life,” says Mary, “and just before my mother died in 2001, she said that my daughter – her grand-daughter – had to have it.”
It is a fabulous family heirloom, an amazing connection down the generations.
And now comes John Lonsdale’s collection of salt pigs - the collective noun for pigs is "drove" or "drift", so perhaps John has a drove of salt pigs. One of his drove is dedicated to Mrs Lewis of New Shildon, and dated February 24, 1893.
It is extremely similar to the other two pigs with a brown wishbone so we believe they were all made at the artisan Wetheriggs pottery near Penrith.
But who was Mrs Lewis?
John Heslop, the other John’s brother-in-law, has discovered there were only three Mrs Lewises in the 1891 census living in Shildon, and all part of the same family, living in Nos 12 and 13 Richmond Street (we guess Richmond Close is now on its site).
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The three Mrs Lewises were:
Sarah J Lewis, 20, born Bishop Auckland, and married to John Lewis, a 26-year-old labourer at the waggon works who came from Jobs Hill, near Crook. They had two children. In the 1901 census, they were listed as living at 13½ Richmond Street, with five children.
Jane E Lewis, 27, born in St Helen Auckland, and married to John Lewis, a 29-year-old shoemaker who was born in North Wales. They had one child. In 1901, they were living nearby in Short Street with their five children.
Ann Lewis, 59, born in Birbeck Fell, Westmorland, and married to William Lewis, a 54-year-old cow keeper, who hailed from Shap in Westmorland. They had three children. In 1901, Ann and William had moved to farm near Tebay, in Westmorland, but their eldest son, William, a coal hewer, remained at 13 Richmond Street with his wife, Selina (another Mrs Lewis) and their son, Thomas.
“If I may be permitted a flight of fancy,” says John, “I’d suggest the salt pig belonged to Ann Lewis, as she and her husband hailed from Westmorland, not a thousand miles from Wetheriggs Pottery, and that maybe Selina inherited it from her mother-in-law when she moved back to Westmorland, thus keeping it in New Shildon.”
READ MORE: THE LOOKY-LIKEY LOCO: THE HIDDEN SECRETS OF 198-YEAR-OLD LOCOMOTION NO 1 ARE REVEALED
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