Saltcote

Steep slate roofs climb a green foothill above the river, and every lane in Saltcote smells faintly of the sea. Along its western edge run the graduation towers, long timber walls packed with dark blackthorn brushwood, taller than the church and crusted white where brine trickles down through the twigs. A fine salt spray drifts off them on the wind. Over the upper town rises a timber headframe on a stone winding house. Its great wheel is black against the sky. The market square is cobbled and wide, ringed by tall houses with green shutters and a parish church with a squat bell tower. Below it the lower town tumbles down to an old saltworks yard of rusted iron boiling pans. Then the wharf: stone quays, long salt stores with barred windows and moored barges on the last navigable reach of the Elv, where the river narrows into a gorge. Late afternoon light turns the salt crust on the towers pale gold.