A SALTERS Lane can be found at Firth Moor, Springwell, Harrowgate Village, Newton Ketton, Sedgefield, Fishburn, the Trimdons, Shotton Colliery, Haswell, South Hetton, Warden Law and on towards Sunderland. All are on a line northwards from the Tees at Hurworth. Is there any connection? Was it a route for salt traffic? - IB Wade, Darlington.

I UNDERSTAND this is an ancient track-way and I believe that all the Salters Lanes you mention are the same route. There are a few broken sections where the course cannot be followed and some where sections have a different name, but they can all be linked.

I traced the course of Salters Lane on Victorian Ordnance Survey maps of County Durham in Darlington Library. Tracing the route from south to north, it appears to start in eastern Hurworth and runs north towards south east Darlington. On Victorian maps, most of this area is open fields but, on modern maps, it reaches the outskirts of Darlington south of the Firth Moor Junior School, near where the lane is crossed by the railway line from Stockton.

Further north, Salters lane intersects with Yarm Road at a roundabout and continues north where it is known as McMullen Road. This was after a Second World War Canadian airman who died in a plane crash. He avoided crashing his plane into a residential area of Darlington and McMullen Road was named in his honour. McMullen Road crosses the Skerne at Haughton Bridge and reverts to the name Salters Lane through Haughton as far as Harrowgate Village, where we find Salters Lane School. Part of this section of Salters Lane is the A1150.

From Harrowgate, the lane heads north-west towards Newton Ketton and, although its immediate course north of here is uncertain, it is seems to head towards Preston-le-Skerne and Bradbury. The lane can be traced through many of the places you mention before reaching the outskirts of Sunderland where it can be traced in the Silksworth, Grindon and Hastings Hill area. Part of its course runs near Barnes Park, but its course in Pennywell is less certain. The older maps suggest it linked up with Hilton Lane which reaches the River Wear at South Hylton. South Hylton has been an important crossing point on the Wear for many centuries. It was historically the site of a ferry across the river.

The historic importance of this area as a river crossing can be compared to Hurworth where the Tees is crossed at nearby Croft and anciently by a ford at Neasham.

The central section of Salters Lane, particularly in the Wingate area, has important offshoots towards Hartlepool and Billingham which were centres of salt-making activity in medieval times. The village of Hart, along with nearby Cowpen and Greatham, were notable for salt-making and Salt De Greatham was widely known. This was the centre of the region's salt-making industry until around 1448 when the area was slowly eclipsed by South Shields. Salt-making became Teesside's first chemical industry because of the quantities of brine available in the area. Salt was important as a preservative and was extracted from brine using huge salt pans. The salt was extracted from the brine by heating it at high temperatures using readily-available Durham coal.

Published: Monday, July 9, 2001

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