Some of you who follow this blog may be aware I am conducting a long term historical research into old roads and ways. This was supposed to concentrate on west Leicestershire and south Derbyshire and certainly go no further west than the River Trent. Definitely no further west – I was adamant! The only problem with drawing metaphorical lines in the sand is that sooner or later you just know you’re going to have to cross them. I’ve just crossed mine and God help us all if Obama crosses his over Syria – but that is another and much more frightening subject.
So back to my line in the sand. One of the subjects I was researching were salt ways that crossed west Leicestershire. I had it all sorted out – I knew where the prehistoric salt roads ran across my research area and I had started to write a paper on my findings. I had the evidence to prove my hypothesis and I was feeling really quite good. Then a nagging thought came into my head about the salt way at Quorn. This problem was addressed and it didn’t effect my arguments – I was on the case and things were fine. Oh it was such a sweet simple life just 48 hours ago.
However, I was thinking about all this in the shower just 2 days ago and then all my work started to fall apart. It concerns the Iron Age fort at Walton on Trent. Now I had known about a probable Iron Age track way to this fort for some time and it hadn’t worried me at all. Then I took my shower and everything unravelled. “..What if the northern of salt ways ran to Walton rather than Alrewas?..” I thought “…then this would destroy much of the arguments in your paper…” Suddenly I realised this was true and the only way to bottom this was to cross the Trent at Walton and explore the salt ways that might have run through this part of Staffordshire.
So with this one step I have exploded the scope of my research into an area of the country that I don’t know that much about. This morning it has become apparent that there probably was a salt way running along the Dove valley – was there another coming further south? I don’t know and I am going to have to try and find out.
Now this whole thing started with a packhorse bridge crossing the River Soar at Enderby some four years ago. It just goes to show that once you start an investigation you just don’t know where it is going to take you. Just ask Rolf Harris.
Simon Marchini
Web: http://WWW.simonmarchini.co.uk
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