Following on from Reuben’s article on making ploughs we look at some that he has made. First one made was this Ransomes two furrow plough.

The Oliver patented balance two furrow plough.

Howard riding plough

Lister Cockshutt general purpose four farrow plough.

Hayes Windlass from the mid-19th century.  Last used for ploughing  in 1884 in the village of Colwall near Great Malvern where it worked in the centre of four fields, the ropes and anchors arranged to go to any field and allowing crop rotation.

Saunderson & MIlls general purpose plough.

Small ratchet drawn plough based on an example in the Museum of Country Life. It is anchored at one end and is propelled by a small winch operated by the handle being pumped to and fro driving the drum with a small cable.

New Zealand plough designed from a photograph of a scrapped one published in Old Glory magaizne.

WW1 Lister Cockshutt riding plough, made for towing behind a Titan tractor.

Davey Sleep reversible plough. A light construction used in the early development of the roundabout system.

Three of these Ransomes Sims & Jeffries high cut match ploughs were made. These ploughs were originally developed before seed drills came into use and the seed grain was broadcast by hand.

At that time the plough would have been a single furrow horse plough cutting a lO inch wide 4 inch deep furrow.The tapered roller, boat, and triangular weight followed to consolidate and polish the 2 to 3 inch deep V left at the top so that the seed could roll down to the bottom ready to be covered by levelling the surface with drags.

With mechanisation the ploughs as depicted here evolved and now are very popular with the vintage ploughing fraternity. And have a special class at ploughing matches.

This model is based on a full sized example built by its present owner from parts from scrapped Ransomes ploughs and many home made bits and pieces. And it has been a very successful machine. It is unique in the fact that it has four sets of rollers and boats when others have two.