Over the past two or three weeks have been slowly building a new map as part of my historical research project looking at Salt Ways/Roads.  This is a long winded and at times mind numbing but it involved finding data about an area entering it into my database and, where possible, plotting ion the relevant map.  At the moment I am looking at the south midlands salt ways radiating from Droitwich and have recorded over a thousand data point on the map from location of water courses to packhorse bridges and so on.  

It does at times send you cross eyed but all the hard work does eventually pay off and a much clearer picture starts to appear, if you can believe this from the Pollockesque map on the lefthand side of the image.  It is also rather rewarding as new facts fall into place and also when crack pot ideas fall by the wayside on closer examination.  I have had far too many of these for comfort but there we go.

This project was only supposed to take about 6 to 12 months – well I am now into my third year and really no end in sight.  I must be mad!

Simon Marchini

www.simonmarchini.co.uk