www.chester.gov.uk/tourism, the 'Heritage Trails' link in the right-hand column will take you to a virtual tour of Chester's City Wall and other locations around the city. These kind of 'tours' are a great way to explore a place before you visit, especially when time is limited. The City Wall tour can be taken all in one go or you can choose one of eight sections.

www.le.ac.uk/emoha now offers a basic on-line training in how to undertake a oral history project. There are also ten 'on-line exhibitions' in the section headed 'Community'. This is a lively, easy to navigate website, which continues to develop with minimal funding.

www.canals.com lives up to its claim that it is 'an introduction for those unfamiliar with the pleasures of canal and waterway cruising' plus more besides. It is a highly individualistic site which provides links and information likely to be of interest to local historians with an interest in canals and waterways. I particularly liked the section 'Where'd They Go?' which tries to track down lost links; as well as appealing for help, the section tells you how it was able to re-establish these lost links. Quite a few had changed their name or simply gone off line for a while before re-appearing. Whilst visiting the site, I went for a ‘walk’ along the Paddington arm of the Grand Union Canal and re-visited places I had not walked or biked along since I was a teenager. The site was created by George Pearson and seems more up-to-date than the message on the home page, which says it was last modified on 20 March 2005.

www.ukaerialphotos.com sells aerial photos covering 'much of Britain' from World War II to the present day. Areas can be located by entering a place name or a postcode. In some cases you can use the aerial photographs to see how an area has changed over the last 50-60 years. Whilst you can search for free, a licence to print-off up to ten hard copies costs £24.95-£94.95 depending on scale. Not cheap by any means; some libraries and archives can probably provide aerial photographs for a lot less.

http://extra.shu.ac.uk/sfca/ is the Sheffield Flood Claims Website. In March 1864, the Dale Dyke Dam, a few miles north-west of the city, burst and 244 people were known to have drowned and hundreds of properties were devastated. As a result, some 7,000 claims were made against the Sheffield Water Company and for many years it has been possible to consult the records in the Sheffield Archives. Now, after two years hard work and a HLF grant, all the records have been digitised and put on-line in the form of a fully searchable database. In addition, there are maps showing the locations of individual claims and an index of occupations, as well as a glossary of terms and sections which provide background information about what actually happened in 1864.

Why do so many websites cloak themselves in secrecy? All too many organisations and individuals provide no information about how they can be contacted by snail mail or, increasingly, by telephone. Perhaps they do not want the support or custom of people who do not live their lives in cyberspace. This approach is very short-sighted, as many of us, whilst we use the web, continue to rely on newspapers and periodicals (not to mention books) for news and information. So, not for the first time, we ask all organisations and individuals sending us press releases and emails about their activities to include a postal address and telephone no. as well as an email address. Thank you.