Historical Research

The Public Records Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI) is not on the move yet. I paid them a visit at their Balmoral Avenue, Belfast, offices this morning in order to undertake some research on Salt Island in Strangford Lough.

All I could find were several old charts and a few valuation records. The maps were nineteenth century and a 1932 chart. They were large, possibly three feet square, and I wanted an A4-size portion copied. The unhelpful and tiresome staff member told me that the whole map had to be photocopied at a cost of over five pounds - which I was not prepared to pay. On a previous occasion another member of staff did it without any fuss; however, I wasn't going to argue with him and didn't bother.

There wasn't a great deal of information on the map at any rate; details of some springs, fields, a cottage and a plantation.

I drove on to Fulton's restaurant at the Balmoral Plaza and had chicken & broccoli bake accompanied by coleslaw and salad, at a cost of six pounds eighty. Very good, as usual.

Homeward-bound, the petrol gauge was in the red so I filled up at Tesco for a whopping fifty-six pounds. Ouch!