| Collection |
Marlborough Province - down the decades from early days |
| Photographer |
Brayshaw, Norman Henry |
| Description |
A black and white photograph showing the salt harvest for 1959 at the Salt Works at Grassmere.
Information as typed by Norm Brayshaw: "Original [photograph] taken 1959. The pile of salt at the Dominion Salt Ltd's Solar salt works at Lake Grassmere. This was part of the 1959 harvest .... the washing shed is on the left and the packing shed and offices on the right."
This is an original Norm Brayshaw photograph. Includes a negative. The original of this photograph is catalogue record 0000.900.0626.
A scan of this photograph will be used in the Changing European History Gallery 3 display in commemoration of the Marlborough Provincial 150th anniversary on 1 November 2009.
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Caption December 2009:
The Lake Grassmere salt stack in 1959. The pile has been a landmark from the early 1950s. A small plant nearby produces vacuum salt that is a food grade product.
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SOLAR SALT FROM LAKE GRASSMERE
Christchurch innovator-industrialist George Skellerup launched this wartime project in 1943. It took atleast five years to prepare the pond, and get things running.
The locality was ideal, with a flat site by the sea, a shallow lake, only 585 mm of rain, plenty of sun, and dry evaporating winds.
Manufacturing salt at Lake Grassmere is a process of concentrating the salt content of seawater by evaporation, then harvesting the crystallised salt.
The salt forms crystals on the bottom of these ponds over the summer. In March, when the salt is ready for harvest, the remaining brine is pumped from the crystallisation ponds back into the sea. Before draining, the ponds are a bright pink-red, from the brine shrimps present.
|
| Year Range from |
1959 |
| Object ID |
2009.067.0076 |
| Object Name |
Photograph |
| Place |
Ward/Grassmere |
| Title |
Salt harvest for 1959 at Grassmere |
|
