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Around 4,500 rural residents headed to Faringdon on Saturday (September 29) for one of the biggest events in the Cotswold country calendar.
The Fairford, Faringdon, Filkins and Burford Ploughing Society’s Ploughing Match and Country Fair has been providing post-harvest entertainment for 64 years now.
Supported by Moore Allen & Innocent – one of the largest providers of professional agricultural and rural expertise in the Cotswolds – the event is held on a different farm every year.
Mark Hill, senior partner, said: “We are delighted to be able to support the ploughing match again this year. The event is one of the most important in the local rural calendar, and it is an excellent opportunity for us to entertain our clients in an enjoyable social setting.”
This year 100 horse-drawn ploughs and vintage tractors made their way to Manor Farm at Hatford, on the Wiltshire / Oxfordshire border, where there was a poignant reunion for the host farmer’s father.
Bill Bayliss, aged 102 and the father of incumbent farmer John Bayliss, was reunited with a Garrett general purpose traction engine that was purchased by his father back in 1919, when Bill was just nine years old.
Bill said he could clearly remember its arrival by train and its life on their farm hauling trailers and driving the threshing machine.
When the engine was sold in 1943, the name plate ‘Hatford Manor’ remained on a beam in one of the stone barns.
The traction engine was one of the star turns in the main arena, which also featured a parade of working horses, flying displays from Fallowfields Falconry, Bob Hogg’s sheepdog display and sheep racing, a tractor tug-of-war and terrier racing.
Elsewhere on the site there were demonstrations of threshing machines, stone-walling, hedging and thatching, along with trade stands, a craft marquee and stalls.
In the horse section of the ploughing match, the Team of Four competition was won by Robert Sampson, while Kim Williams won the general purpose category.
The winners in the tractor classes were: David Williams (Garden Tractor), Derek Needham (High Cut), Jonathan Lander ( Semi Digger), Ollie Turner (Fully Mounted), R G Butlin (Classic), Richard Gaisford (European Style Reversible), Richard Ebsworth (European Style Reversible), Martin Franklin (Novice), Roger Seidel (Trailed), Mike Yeats (Trailed Open), Nigel Stroud (Vintage Mounted), David Mobbs (Vintage Mounted Open), and Andrew Drinkwater (Ferguson).