Seaweed and Kelp

In the auction lots that were sold off in Belfast in 1881, there is quite a lot of detail about the rights and privileges that came with them.

Much of this relates to the kelp-shore, and the seaweed that grew on it. For the tenants on these lands, the seaweed was a major resource that could be exploited as food, fodder, fertilizer, and raw material. When burned the seaweed became kelp, an impure type of soda and iodine that could be put to commercial use in the linen industry, and in the manufacture of soap and glass. By the time the lands were being sold off however, the commercial potential of coastal seaweed and kelp had gone into a steep decline. The rights being offered in the auction lots were hence not as attractive as  they might have been a generation or so earlier.  This in turn no doubt had an impact on the values of the lands themselves.

Through JSTOR, those interested can read an entire article devoted to the rise and fall of the kelp and seaweed industry around Strangford Lough. Even browsing the article helps make some sense of the lives of the tenants living on these Wombwell lands.