Description:Stoking furnaces at Chance & Hunt's Salt Works on Stafford Common. The furnaces heated large shallow iron pans containing brine. The water evaporated, leaving salt crystals.
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 success of the Salt and Alkali Co. led to two other firms starting up on Stafford Common: the Crown Saltworks and Winston Brothers (taken over by Chance and Hunt, a Wednesbury-based company, in 1907).
In 1950 the Salt and Alkali Co. combined with the other companies to form Amasal Ltd., which in turn was taken over in 1959 to become a subsidiary of the British Soda Co.
Eventually the brine pumping process caused subsidence in the north of the town, and therefore salt production in Stafford was banned in 1970.