Saxon salt making

According to legend...

It is just about possible that some of this may be accurate. According to legend, salt was first manufactured in Maldon by accident nearly 2,000 years ago when the slaves of one Casius Petrox, commander of the local Roman legion, overheated his bathwater. He was partial to a hot seawater bath to offset the effects of the fog, damp and icy winds which swept across the open marshes (this weather instantly rings true). Anyway, his slaves had thus inadvertently discovered a method of producing salt from sea water. So chuffed was Casius that he gave up legioning and turned to saltmaking, though the Petrox brand seems to have disappeared in the intervening millennia.

Saxon salt pits on Mersea Island