Bid to AHRC in Partnership with Salford University

Our next grant application should be submitted by the end of this month.
It is to the Arts and Humanities Research Council and aims to describe all different process of salt making from 1500, create a 'trusted sources' archive and reconstruct all the process and major sites using 3d graphics using the University's THINKlab.

There is a growing need for this approach as more and more publications carry on repeating outdated publications and ones that are just WRONG -

• Agricola's illustration do not show salt making in the Saxon period! They show illustrations of salt making described by someone from Saxony, Germany.
• A publication of 2006 quotes a reference of a publication dated 1920 attributing the discover of rock salt in 1670 as having been made in Droitwich, when it should have been in Northwich!
• A celebrity chef described how white salt was made in Cheshire from rock salt by taking the liquid out of the rock. A bit of a difference to the operation of evaporating brine made under ground by rainwater soaking through the ground and dissolving rock salt.
• The historic use of rock salt to strengthen sea water in the eighteenth century was not an 'adulteration of sea water' it was a realistic opportunity to make white salt using less fuel.
• Salt has not been 'mined' in Cheshire from the Roman period. It was made from extracting brine from natural brine springs that were enhanced by digging wells.
• Is a 'leaden' salt pan made of lead, or is it just heavy?
• A 'salt ship' found in Nantwich was used to store brine in, and is not a log boat!

Our work is desperately needed. Please leave comments here in support of the application.
Thank you.

HLF Bid Failed

Sadly our bid to the Heritage Lottery Fund was unsuccessful.

We have requested a better feed back than the refusal letter, as it seemed that our bid did not satisfy any of the criteria required for the particular type of grant award we were requesting.
It seems that what we want to wont meet the criteria for Your Heritage, Resilient Heritage or Sharing Knowledge - doesn't pay for translations and that digital publications are not a high priority.

We have as yet not been given feedback that the case officer ever downloaded and read the digital reports we posted in a shared dropbox folder, or that any of the committee ever had the opportunity to read it either.

We thought that the digital formats (i-book, epub, pdf and html5) explained well how the approach we proposed was cutting edge and inline with how information exchange and organisations would use digital technology in the future. It was also able to show how the guidance provided by the HLF for the use of digital technology in Heritage Lottery projects was outdated - having been written in 2012. Things have moved on a lot since then in the digital world!