 Along the marshes were the salt pans, where sea water was evaporated by the sun; and boiling houses, where day and night smoky coal furnances made the final extraction, causing a dirty smudge on the coastline…"

Philip Fallé writing in 1694, saw Pennington Marshes as "“a most unhealthy place, without fresh water.. with stinking vapours and smoke that arise out of the neighbouring marshes.”"

Per Stephens, the sea salt undertaking was finally abandoned in 1845 "‘when an inexhaustiable supply of mineral salt could be provided from Cheshire.Thus ended a great local industry going back to very early times when in 1217 we are told the Sheriff was ordered to restore to Henry de Pont the possessions of his “customs” of salt in Pennington and Efford which had been taken into the King’s hands.’"

Other commentators site the duties imposed on sea salt as a significant contributor to the downfall of the Pennington and Lymington salt industry, and indeed express surprise that a local industry even managed to survive until 1845.Up to the mid nineteenth century (c. 1845) smuggling was one of Pennington’s more lucrative industries.