  We present first results from electronic Multi-Element Remotely Linked
Interferometer Network (e-MERLIN) and electronic European VLBI Network (e-EVN)
observations of a small sample of ultra-steep spectrum radio sources, defined
as those sources with a spectral index alpha < -1.4 between 74 MHz and 325 MHz,
which are unresolved on arcsecond scales. Such sources are currently poorly
understood and a number of theories as to their origin have been proposed in
the literature. The new observations described here have resulted in the first
detection of two of these sources at milliarcsecond scales and show that a
significant fraction of ultra-steep spectrum sources may have compact
structures which can only be studied at the high resolution available with very
long baseline interferometry (VLBI).
