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Our English salt supply is chiefly derived from the Cheshire and Worcestershire salt-regions, which are of triassic age. Many of the places at which the salt is mined have names ending in wich, such as Northwich, Middlewich, Nantwich, Droitwich, Netherwich, and Shirleywich.
They were either works upon the coast for procuring marine salt by evaporation, or were established in the localities of inland salt springs. The salt works of Cheshire were the most numerous, and were called "wiches." Hence the names of some places, such as Middlewich and Nantwich. The revenue from mines offers some curious facts. No mention of tin is to be found in Cornwall.
It has a silk mill: it has a handsome church, which, however, is but a chapel, for the town belongs to some parish of another name , as Stourbridge lately did to Old Swinford. Macclesfield has a town-hall, and is, I suppose, a corporate town. We came to Congleton, where there is likewise a silk mill. Then to Middlewich, a mean old town, without any manufacture, but, I think, a Corporation.
NANTWICH, about five miles from Crewe, is one of the towns which supplies Cheshire's salt exports, Middlewich and Northwich being the other two. In all, rich brine springs are found, but the celebrated mines of rock-salt are found at Northwich only. It is vulgarly imagined that the word wich has something to do with salt, these three towns being often described as the "Wiches."
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