Description:Brine deposits were discovered under Stafford Common in 1877, during a search for water supplies for the town. In 1893 the Stafford Salt and Alkali Co. was founded on Common Road.
The company opened a second works in Baswich a year later, supplied with brine from Stafford Common by a pipeline which passed through the centre of the town and also fed the Brine Baths in Greengate Street.
In 1948 Stafford Salt and Alkali Co. and George Hamlett and Sons Ltd. of Cheshire provided capital to set up Vacuum Salt Ltd. and erect a vacuum plant at Baswich.
The open pan works at Baswich closed in 1957 as the vacuum process was more efficient. In 1959 the vacuum works were taken over by British Soda Co. Ltd.
Eventually the brine pumping process caused subsidence in the north of the town, and therefore salt production in Stafford was banned in 1970.