Stained glass salt boats in Weston-on-Avon Church

These salt boats were what we now call salt cellars. In All Saints church (built in the 13th cenury all these little glass panes were scattered about the windows but have now been collected in one place. The large house in the village was destroyed during the civil war and little is known about why there were so many of these salt boats in the church.

In the middle ages sitting below the salt meant that when sitting at the Lord's table it was common for the entire household of the important person to sit down at table together. The table, in the Great Hall, might be up to thirty feet long. The more important people would be grouped round the Lord at one end of the table, the servants at the other. The salt cellar was somewhere in the middle, and it was important to your social status to know whether you sat above the salt - the Lord's end - or below. If you were seated below the salt, then you were not allowed to take any.