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On Your Farm: Steam Farming

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29/06/2014

Steam Farming

BBC Radio 4 - On Your Farm, Steam Farming

Caz Graham visits the farm with a huge collection of working vintage farm machinery.

Where can you find a steam-driven tractor, a steam-driven dairy for churning butter, and a 24-tonne ploughing engine? Answer: at a farm in South Cumbria. Caz Graham pays a visit.

Alex Sharphouse is fascinated by ancient farm machinery. He has a collection, not just little grey Fergies, but two 24 tonne traction engines on his farm in Bouth in South Cumbria. He also has steam driven tractors, a steam driven dairy for churning butter and a farmyard full of vintage farm implements. 

But it's not just museum fodder. Alex and his wife Charlotte bought Old Hall Farm near Ulverston in Cumbria 7 years to use this once state of the art machinery for what it was originally intended and now they've opened to the public to show farming as it was a hundred years ago. 

Caz Graham tries her hand at farming with heavy horses, driving a 24 tonne ploughing engine and meets 16 farmers taking their vintage tractors on a 150 mile charity run which includes crossing Windermere by ferry.

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