Issue 58

EVENTS
October 2023 on land near Bishop’s
Lydeard near Taunton, Somerset,
by kind permission of K S Coles and
family.
What is the event’s history?
This will be the 72nd
championships, the first was
held back in 1951 near Tadcaster,
North Yorkshire. Since then it has
been held in 27 different counties
in England, once in Wales and
four times in Scotland. We are
constantly on the lookout for new
sites, especially in the 16 counties
we have yet to visit, or the areas it
hasn’t been to for many years.
Everyone involved in running
the championships are volunteers
and they live anywhere between
Cornwall and Aberdeen.
How does the relationship work
with the venue?
Our hosts allow us free run of
the land for a week to allow us to
prepare the event, hold it and then
clear it all up. We have had some
wonderful hosts over the past years
“IT’S ALSO
NICE FOR
CHILDREN
– AND
ADULTS – TO
SEE HOW
FARMING HAS
CHANGED
OVER THE
LAST 200
OR MORE
YEARS...”
– in fact this will the third time that
the Coles family has invited us back
to hold the event on their land in
Somerset.
How is your relationship with the
local authority and community?
We work with many different local
authorities and communities
and find that they are all very
welcoming. Because the event is
usually something very different,
communities look forward to seeing
everything, especially the horses
and the steam engines. It’s also
nice for children – and adults – to
see how farming has changed over
the last 200 or more years, from the
horses, steam engines and vintage
tractors right through to the most
up-to-date tractors and machinery.
I find all the appropriate
information and liaise with all the
local authorities and SAGs and will
travel to meet them if necessary.
I do all the prep work – the only
paid people in our organisation
are myself and Claire who helps in
the office. The rest of the team are
volunteers. I only came to help in
the office for one year after I left
school – 40 years later, here I am as
chief executive!
How do you plan the layout of the
event?
Every site is different and it’s
impossible to have two the same
as sometimes we might be in one
or two massive fields or, such as
last year when we were on the
Chatsworth Estate in Derbyshire,
we had 10 fields to fit it all in. So
it all depends on the size of fields,
the hedges and even how the crops
have been harvested.
We plan the layout ourselves
– the land for ploughing is a bit
more technical than just putting
competitors in a field as we have to
take into consideration the direction
the land has been drilled/worked by
the farmer as they will plough in the
opposite direction. We need to make
sure they all have the same size plot
too, which will vary in size for each
class depending on the equipment
being used to plough. I don’t think
there are event specialists who
specialise in ploughing!
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