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> I've often seen a "rope walk" marked on Victorian OS maps - can > anyone tell > me exactly what these were? I cannot find references immediately but I seem to recollect that: Normally at least 100 yards was needed for a rope walk. Rope walks were normally in the open air. They were called "walks" because the people making the rope had to walk up and down the whole length of rope they were making. I have seen such rope walks still operating in the far east. Since ships produced an enormous demand for rope there was normally a rope yard at or near any dockyard, including, of course, the naval ones. In the 19th century the process was mechanised and moved in to factories. Belfast became the centre for ropemaking. There was a rope walk in my home town, Wolverhampton. Its long thin shape can still be seen on modern maps. On the ground it is still visible as an open, vacant, area and it seems that at some point in the nineteenth century a large, brick, shed-like building, about 100 yards long, was built to carry out the process indoors. The ropewalk and the surrounding area is about to be redeveloped. As a preliminary to that development archaeological and historical work is to be carried out and we might learn something more about this ropewalk and ropewalks generally. Frank Sharman Wolverhampton, UK