Weald and Downland Autumn Show Oct 5/6th 2019

By Richard Amos

 With the weather forecast looking wet, I decided against taking the caravan travelling down each day instead. The site can get pretty boggy if wet and we had significant rain in the week leading up to the weekend. As it turned out, both days were relatively dry with Sunday, forecast for heavy rain, actually being quite sunny and pleasant. There was a good turnout of SEAMS club members with their engines and since this is very much a working show, some interesting driven machinery on display. This year Luke and Tom brought a Teles dragsaw to slice up a large tree trunk. They were busy all weekend and really put on a good show that drew the crowds. A show report on the exhibits should appear in a future SEM. On Saturday morning I investigated the smoke blowing across the site to find the oven in the newly restored bakery building being fired up. Later they would be baking using flour from grain threshed on site by the steam powered threshing machine and milled by the water mill. I was told it should be mixed with other flour to make a lighter loaf. I had to agree after using flour from my Bamford mill at Wiston to make bread, edible but quite dense… I find that flour from our UK grain is best used for pancakes. The vintage ploughing by horse and tractor is always good to watch and over the weekend they make a pretty good job of it. All in, an enjoyable show and one that suitably ends the season for most of us.

…. and from Ian.

Earlier this year this show seemed to have changed with no mention of vintage displays but after a few emails to the organiser things changed and we were in again. We had a very good display of engines, the best that I have seen for a long time. Thank you to those that came along and supported the club. The rest of the show was as normal with displays of wood turning and a steam engine driving a thrashing machine, lots of food stalls all around to please everyone. In the arena were displays of cart horses pulling various carts etc, gun dog show and later tractor displays, again I managed to get the plaques for our section, an excellent show and hopefully back next year.