BRITISH PLOUGHING CHAMPIONSHIPS CELEBRATES 70 YEARS

The British National Ploughing Championships & Country Festival will be celebrating 70 years when the event is held on 9th and 10th October 2021 at Mindrum Mill, Northumberland, by kind permission of D Harvey & Son. This will be only the third time the event has been held in the county.

Organisers say space for trade stands, shopping stalls and agricultural machinery demonstrations is being snapped up after many shows have been cancelled.
 
They also say ploughing entries are coming from ploughmen and women from all over the country with some competitors travelling well over 400 miles to take part in the Championships from as far afield as Devon, the Isle of Wight and Kent.
 
They will compete in one of fifteen different ploughing classes over the two days - including world style conventional and reversible, vintage classes for trailing, hydraulic and classic ploughs, horticultural ploughing, crawlers, tractor high cut and magnificent heavy horses. There are also tractor club classes for Ferguson, Ford & Fordson and David Brown. In five classes, the top 10 competitors from the first day will take part in a Plough-Off Final on the Sunday to find the British Champion in each section.
 
Alongside the ploughing competitions, organisers say there will be steam ploughing engines, vintage tractors and machinery displays and working vintage demonstrations. Machinery manufacturers and local dealers will have an area for demonstrating machines and there will be agricultural trade stands plus other related shopping areas.
 
The 250 acre site is close to the Scottish border, between Wooler and Kelso and is sown with wheat and oil seed rape.  After a recent site visit, President of the Society of Poughmen, 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!”