Dave

They certainly could be of use especially if you don't have access to a GIS system. They do of course only apply if you are running under SQL Server 2008 and  Recorder 6 doesn't use them  but you can add  tables through Management studio ,  and populate these from the grid refs or lat/long.  Then you can use these in a whole range of spatial queries without needing any GIS system .  This is a big subject  and  so far I have only got as far as doing some basic things to see how it might work. However, to get you started, below is a UDF which converts a Spatial Reference to the Geometry data type (Easting and Northings). You could use this to populate a new table with say the Sample_Key and the Geometry.  This function is taking the Grid Ref as a point, but it could be easily adapted to return a polygon based on the Grid Ref precision. Then you could do all sort of overlap queries. You could just specify boundaries by co-ordinates or it is fairly easy to import ESRI shape files directly into the tables, but you need some third party software to do this (various  boundaries are available free, as is the software for importing them).  The SQL Server 2008 help for Transact SQL contains a lot of information about the various functions available for spatial queries.   

Although I can't actually test it I have seen that that ARC GIS can link directly to the spatial fields. Has any one tried this  ?

Mike

USE [NBNData]
GO
/****** Object:  UserDefinedFunction [dbo].[LCSpatial_OSGB_Geom]    Script Date: 04/30/2011 19:52:55 ******/
SET ANSI_NULLS ON
GO
SET QUOTED_IDENTIFIER ON
GO

CREATE FUNCTION [dbo].[LCSpatial_OSGB_Geom]
(@Spatial_Ref varchar(30), @SRS varchar(4), @Indicator int )
RETURNS Geometry
--
--    DESCRIPTION
--    Function to return a Geometry as a point from a Spatial Reference (OSBG only)
--   
--
--    PARAMETERS
--    NAME                DESCRIPTION
--    
--
--
--    AUTHOR:    Mike Weideli
--    CREATED: 28 April 2011
--

AS
BEGIN

--****************************************************************************************************
DECLARE @ReturnGeometry Geometry
DECLARE @WKTString varchar(100)
DECLARE @EastingStr varchar(20)
DECLARE @NorthingStr varchar(20)

If @SRS = 'OSGB'
BEGIN
  Set @NorthingStr = dbo.LCReturnNorthingsV2(@spatial_ref,'OSGB',@Indicator)
  Set @EastingStr = dbo.LCReturnEastingsV2(@spatial_ref,'OSGB',@Indicator)
  SET @WKTString = 'POINT(' + @EastingStr + ' ' + @NorthingStr + ')'
  Set @ReturnGeometry = geometry::STPointFromText(@WKTString,27700)
   
 
 
 
 
END

--****************************************************************************************************
RETURN @ReturnGeometry
END     

.