Harvesting the Old Fashioned Way 2013

This show used to held at Heyshott, but for the past five or six years, has been held on a farm at West Stoke near Chichester. It is a working show with standing corn being cut with old fashioned machines then put through a threshing machine to get the grain. Tractors have a field to plough in with their trailed ploughs, also pairs of horses demonstrating early ploughing. There is a saw bench cutting up wood, various awning displays, a display of classic vehicles and also the display of stationary engines.

We were in the middle of a stubble field, a bit rough but fairly level. We had some rain on the Friday but a good Saturday, we ran the engines for most of the day but Sunday was very wet and soon turned into a mud bath in places. The show was abandoned early afternoon and we packed up. There were quite a few vehicles that had to be towed out of the field but you can’t win them all. Talk is they are trying to get back to the old field at Heyshott, time will tell.

Ian Sampson