Salt Pans

Conservation is not about the past but about the future. All too often people regard the retention of a building as the sole object of the preservation of past relics for future generations, like some ancient fossil in a museum case. But the project to save Prestonpans has far broader objectives.

The Saltworks can be brought to life again to play an active part in the community.

Whilst coming to look and learn the tourist can carry away one of man's most important minerals bearing the words PRESTONPANS.

School children from the Lothians can look on to see crafts­manship that was the basis of life before the factory took over.

For eight hundred years salt making provided work and trade for the burgh. Associated industries like pottery, tile and soap making grew up. Why can't we let these crafts flourish again?

Few of us would any longer claim that big is best. The small town, workshop, close, backgreen are places where people became a community. After thirty years of physical planning, it is now being recognised that one of the most delicate and precious ingredients in urban living is the community.

It is hard to create but very easy to destroy.

Prestonpans salt works lies in the very heart of a community and this complex could beat again giving employment and opportunity to young and old, visitors and locals by exhibiting to all a glimpse of past greatness.

Dr. Ian H. Adams

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Cover - Preface - Contents- Glossary - Acknowledgements - Photographs & Illustrations