The British National Ploughing Championships & Country Festival will celebrate its 70th anniversary when it returns to Northumberland for the third time this October. Set to take place on the 9th and 10th October at Mindrum Mill, with the kind permission of D Harvey & Son, visitors will be able to see ploughmen and women take part in fifteen different ploughing classes.
According to the organiser, the Society of Ploughmen, trade stands, shopping stalls and machinery demonstration space is being snapped up and visitors are actively looking for events to attend following the pandemic.
Similar interest has been shown by competitors, some of whom are travelling more than 400 miles from as far afield as Devon, the Isle of Wight and Kent.
The various classes include world style conventional and reversible, vintage classes for trailing, hydraulic and classic ploughs, horticultural ploughing, crawlers, tractor high cut and heavy horse drawn. There are also tractor club classes for Ferguson, Ford & Fordson and David Brown. In five classes, the top ten competitors from the first day will take part in a Plough-Off Final on Sunday to find the British Champion in each section.
Alongside the ploughing competitions, visitors can also see steam ploughing engines, vintage tractors and machinery displays and working vintage demonstrations. Machinery manufacturers and local dealers will have an area for demonstrating the most up-to-date machines they have and there will be agricultural trade stands, shopping stalls and country crafts.
The 250-acre site is reportedly looking very good, with crops almost ready to be harvested. It is close to the Scottish border, between Wooler and Kelso and has been sown with wheat and oilseed rape.
After a recent site visit, President of the Society of Ploughmen, organisers of the event, and host farmer, Ian Harvey said, “I have been planning the crop rotation around this great event since 2018 and there is a lot of local and national interest and excitement about the Championships coming to North Northumberland next to the Scottish border. It will be an honour to host such an outstanding event!”
The event is sponsored by Bridgestone/Firestone and Continental Tyres and further support has been given by Tama, Cereals Event, Ivor King, Friends of Ferguson Heritage and CBS.
For more information and tickets go to www.ploughmen.co.uk