The Talk in September was Secret Lymington - Nature Reserves, Salt Making and Smuggling presented by Aimee Durnell

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Aimee is an author, artist, Lymington Walks guide  and a children’s music entertainer.  She is also a Guardian of the Nature Reserve with her husband. Aimee gave us a superb talk about Lymington, fantastically illustrated with her own Linocuts and watercolours. This talk covered the period from Mesolithic to recent times. It covered many facets of life from various periods in Lymington that has influenced the evolution of the town

 

It started with an 8,000 year old settlement still there today called Buckland Rings. The position of Lymington with its estuary has had great influence over its reputation for boat building to sailing. In Edward 111’s reign Lymington provided him with 9 warships compared to Portsmouth building only 5 warships. Boat building was lost when the estuary silted up.

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In the 1700s (1746 was the pinnacle) Salt Making was a major industry. Fortunes were made and the Conservation area of Lymington’s Georgian houses was born. Today Aimee paints wonderful watercolours of the streets of Lymington. These pictures can be found in the Lymington market where Aimee has a Market stall. Salt in the 1700’s was as valuable as gold. Lymington salt, produced in the saltmarshes with windmills and coal burners was distributed all over the country and abroad. As happened to many industries, with the arrival of the railway, salt mined in Cheshire was much cheaper to produce and overnight Lymington Salt was no longer required. This event bankrupted the salt producers overnight.

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Smuggling was another famous industry enabled by swinging taxes levied by the government on all kinds of good from Spirits to Cloth. The position of Lymington was perfect for smugglers to leave smuggled goods on the sea bottom at high tide and at low tide the population of Lymington were able to gather the goods off the marshes. Smuggling was fairly openly carried out in Lymington since nearly all the population were benefitting from it. It was only when the government brought in draconian measures to stop the smuggling did that activity come to an end.

 

Aimee is a very energetic and interesting presenter so there was no dozing during her presentation.