By the 1550s, Salta participated in a system called "seawake", which was a night watch to guard the coast against incursions across the Solway by the Scots. These incursions were frequent, and on one occasion in 1592 at Dubmill, near Salta, a Mr Barwise the local miller was taken prisoner by Scottish raiders. One of the properties in Salta is known to date from the 16th century, and the hamlet has been continually inhabited ever since. During the Second World War, 43 evacuees from the Newcastle-Upon-Tyne area were billeted to the parish of Holme St. Cuthbert, and several ended up in Salta. Development in the 20th century saw new houses built, but mainline water and electricity arrived later than in other parts of Britain, perhaps due to the small population. Excavations of a cropmark enclosure at Edderside, beyond the Moss to the southeast of Salta, were conducted in 1989–1990 by Robert H. Bewley. The Kelsick House wind turbine was approved for construction in 2013 in spite of local opposition, to the northeast, to the south of Abbeytown, and will join a number of other wind turbines in the area around Salta. Salta lies near the coast of northwestern Cumbria. By road it is situated south of Mawbray, north of Allonby, southwest of Holme St Cuthbert and southwest of Abbeytown. It shares very close community ties with nearby Mawbray, although the city of Carlisle provides wider amenities, some to the northeast. The shore of Allonby Bay, an inlet of the Solway Firth, is a mere half-a-mile to the west of the hamlet. A beck (a local word meaning "stream") flows through Salta, fed in part by irrigation channels. This beck eventually joins the Black Dub and drains into the Solway Firth at Dubmill. Salta Moss is a Site of Special Scientific Interest, both for its natural and historical significance, and is itself is located in a designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty which covers much of the Solway Plain. The Moss is an area of peatland, containing "mainly oligotrophic semi-fibrous grass-sedge peat" according to "Soil Survey Record". It combines characteristics of both a raised bog and a valley mire, and lies atop deposits of glacial sand from the last ice age.