Large, bright red coloured, sausages filled with finely-ground spiced pork. The name is possibly a variant of the French 'cervelat'.
Known at least since advertisements by Wall and Garland, Pork Butchers, of 33 Westgate St, Bath, beginning in the Bath Chronicle and Weekly Gazette - Thursday 17 October 1793
In the 'Pickwick Papers' of 1837; "Mr. Solomon Pell ... regaling himself ... with a cold collation of an Abernethy biscuit and a saveloy."