Most of the pit-head buildings at Saltom have been buried by the “Fairy-Rock” landslip.  Only a tall building that housed the winding engine, part of a chimney stack, and some foundations remain.

 
This plan shows buildings at Saltom in 1864.

     
The same area surveyed in the year 2000 by Lancaster University.

The remains tell a story of engineering.  The first is the massive sea-wall.  Saltom was squeezed between slipping cliffs and powerful waves.  Once, Saltom had its own harbour, but that was destroyed by storms.

The tall engine house tells us that space was a luxury.  The engine had to be vertical.  Drawings from 1832 suggest that the stroke of the engine was 6 feet.

To the south of the engine-house are the foundations of cottages.  Who lived there?  Did they stay all year round?

Half-buried in the cliff, is a curved horse-gin wall.  This was a horse-powered winch.  Horses walked in a circle to wind men & materials up and down the shaft.  Before the steam engine was installed, all coal was wound to the surface by horse-power.

Buried by land-slips are the two pumping houses.  Here, steam-powered pumps drained water from the tunnels.  Also buried are remains of salt panhouses.  Saltom coal was burned to boil seawater, creating salt – as profitable as coal, and lighter to carry! 

When saltmaking stopped, one panhouse was converted to a foundry – Saltom was doing its own steelworking.