Great Grandfather's Harvest

Throughout history, harvest-time has always represented the culmination of the agricultural year; a time of never-ending work for the farmers as the crops are gathered in, the grass and hay as feed for animals, straw for bedding, grain for baking and brewing, vegetables for both human and animal consumption, etc. In the autumn of 1979, Great Grandfather's Harvest was the title of a special event held at Crossroads Farm, Morley Road, Chaddesden, to showcase examples of the vintage equipment used in the harvests of yesteryear.

This unusual exhibition was organised by Derbyshire Museum Service in collaboration with Locko Park Estates and planned in two separate phases a couple of weeks apart. To begin with, a notice in the Derby Evening Telegraph invited members of the public to 'Recapture the sights, sounds and smells of yesterday's harvest' at the farm on 7th and 8th September between 11.00am and 6.00pm in order to watch the 'Traditional reaping and binding of 5 acres of wheat and traditional stooking.' The admission fee being a very reasonable 25p for adults and 10p for children and OAPs.

A fortnight later the wheat was threshed with three threshing drums powered by tractors and steam engines; after which part of the field was ploughed by steam ploughs, vintage tractors and horse ploughs. This second phase of the event took place on 22nd and 23rd September, also between 11.00am to 6.00pm, but with increased admission prices of £1 for adults and 25p for children/OAPs, and provided an opportunity for me to take the following photographs. Most of the information accompanying the pictures comes from the event programme produced by the Museum Service.

Here Morley Road is to the left of the picture, with Crossroads farmhouse in the background. To the right is the Aveling & Porter steam roller 'Aevelyn' from Lambley, Notts., complete with living van, which also features in later photographs. In the background to the left, is another traction engine and associated living van.

'Enterprise', a Clayton & Shuttleworth steam engine, registration AL 9348, dating from 1911 and owned in 1979 by J.T. Beeby. Notice the coiled striped hose behind the driver; if a steam engine was running low on water the hose could be dropped into any convenient pond to top it up. Baling machine over to right.

The 'Enterprise' heads off past a static exhibition of corn-knotting in the direction of the steam roller featured in the next photograph.

Marshall 'S' type convertible roller of 1927, nicknamed 'Goolie', maintained in 1979 by the Smalley Preservation Group. Note the drive chains to the roller. The bow top ('Gypsy') caravan in the distance to the left can be seen in more detail in one of the following photographs.

Owned by Tom Titterton of Turnditch in 1979, this threshing drum was powered by means of a belt from the Field Marshall Series III stationary tractor. The actual revolving drum which beat the crop in order to separate the grain from the straw was contained within the large timber-framed wheeled box bearing the name of its manufacturer, Foster of Lincoln. Note the bags of grain hanging down from the machine. The baler behind the thresher was also powered by the same tractor via an additional system of belts. Towards the front of the picture, the machine behind the metal bath is possibly a Lister 2HP pump, rebuilt 1979. Even nearer to the tractor is what seems to be the 1946 Bamford barn engine; such engines were used to power smallish items of machinery about the farm, e.g. root and chaff cutters, sheep shears, corn mills, dairy equipment, etc.

Over to the left is another view of Crossroads farmhouse. In the centre of the picture is the Foster's threshing drum and its associated baler seen in the previous picture.

This decorated bow top caravan dating from 1917 was one of the items provided by the Derbyshire Museum Service. When I saw this, the alternative name for such caravans, gypsy caravans, immediately came to mind, simply because only a few hundred yards away, on the west side of Morley Road, is the short public footpath once known as Gypsy Lane which runs for some 320 yards to Lime Lane. Note also the blue horse-plough to the left, which also features in the next two photographs.

Another belt-driven threshing drum, which might perhaps have been made by either Robey (1907) or Garvie (1941), since the 1979 catalogue described both as forming part of the Museum Service's own display, but didn't supply further details. The dark-green stationary tractor to its right provided the necessary horsepower. The bow top caravan featured in the previous photograph can be seen to the left, whilst over to the right, in the distance to the left of the electricity pylon, is Hollies Farm on Morley Road. The blue single furrow horse-plough in the foreground is an interesting item in its own right.

The single furrow plough. An iron implement held by a man and pulled along by horses. Standing at the back of his plough, the ploughman directed its course by means of the two handles. The larger of the two wheels at the front ran in the previously ploughed furrow, its smaller companion, the land wheel, ran across the surface of the unploughed land. By adjusting the wheels, the depth of the furrow could be altered. The coulter, a vertical blade, was designed to part the turf and split the sod, after which the share would cut horizontally into the furrow prior to the mouldboard turning over the furrow to the right-hand side. The plough head allowed the angle of draught to be adjusted to even the load on the horses dragging the plough. When he reached the end of the furrow, the ploughman had to use the handles in order to raise the share clear of the ground before moving to the next furrow. His was a hard and very physical job, with much of his day spent with one leg down in a furrow and the other up on the land!

This horse brass was part of the collection belonging to my late uncle, Lal Smith, who had worked with horses as a young man and almost certainly would have used a single furrow plough. It must have been quite a complex job, controlling a pair of horses while keeping the plough on course, turning the soil over to the correct depth.

Garrett no 29764 general purpose steam traction engine, known as 'Olive', registration AC 9326 was built in 1911 at Garrett's works in Leiston, Suffolk. 'Olive's various uses included heavy haulage, providing power for belt-driven machinery and threshing, etc., and here is connected to another threshing drum.

Named 'Aevelyn', this was an Aveling & Porter Roller, no 14083, registration DG 1372 originally bought by Gloucester County Council in October 1930 and years later acquired by R.A. Fairwood of Lambley, Notts. You may just be able to make out the manufacturer's famous 'Rearing Horse' symbol with its Latin motto 'Invicta' (Unconquered) immediately above the roller.

A final photograph of 'Aevelyn' as it makes its way across the field.

This curious-looking machine, registration AL 8510, was originally built by John Fowler of Leeds as a steam plough, but its owners, Beebys of Rempstone near Loughborough, converted it to run on diesel. The 1979 programme noted it was 'still used occasionally.' When used for ploughing, traction engines usually operated in pairs at opposite ends of the field. They were connected by means of a long steel cable which would then be used to drag the plough across the field. Underneath this machine is the horizontal wheel, around which was coiled the steel cable.

Several people are admiring this Fowler no 14211 convertible traction engine/roller built in 1914 and exported to Ireland where it became known as 'Queen of the Boyne'.

Aside from all the heavy machinery, Great Grandfather's Harvest also had a range of other displays to interest visitors like the clay pigeon demonstration shoot arranged by Ockbrook Gun Club and the fly-tying presentation for fishermen. Various other craft skills such as thatching, corn knotting and corn dolly making were also featured.

All this of course took place 47 years ago and today much hereabouts has changed largely due to the fact that the dividing line between two local authorities runs down Morley Road. On the west side of the road (administered by Derby City Council), where some of the vintage vehicles were displayed, new houses in the form of Sovereign Way, Baron Close, etc., have been built as part of the Oakwood development, together with a new public house, The King's Corner. However, immediately opposite on the east side of the road (administered by Erewash Borough Council), Crossroads Farm still stands with farmland to its north, south and east. It would be interesting to know the subsequent history of the various steam rollers, traction engines and other pieces of bygone machinery that played such an important part in Great Grandfather's Harvest. On the basis of just a few Internet searches it seems that some, at least, are still 'up and running', albeit in different parts of the country.

In his introduction to the event programme, Captain Patrick Drury-Lowe of Locko Park commented: 'We are aiming to re-create the harvest atmosphere from the turn of the century to about the Second World War. The event will be recorded on film so that in years to come future generations will be able to appreciate the skills and hard work of our fore-fathers.' I do not know whether a film of the event was ever made, nor, if it was, whether it has survived to the present day. What I am certain of, however, is that those who attended the event must have shared the Captain's sentiment when he wrote: 'It is pleasant to create living history and gratifying to see the old machinery working rather than as a mere static display in a museum'.