Information and pictures of mostly rural topics and activities.
Advertisement in The Young Moonraker 1977, the 1977 Year Book of the Wiltshire Federation of Young Farmers Clubs:
M.J. Abbott
Member of National Association Agricultural Contractors
Agricultural and Land Drainage Contractor
Dinton, Salisbury, Wilts
Phone Teffont 361
Farm Water Supplies
Liquid, Slurry and Solid Manure Spreading
Forage Harvesting
“Big” Baling
Direct Drilling
Advertisement in The Young Moonraker 1977, the 1977 Year Book of the Wiltshire Federation of Young Farmers Clubs:
Watveare Fahr offer a whole range of superb farming machinery
Ripvator Cultivators
Diadem Broadcasters
Watveare Forklifts
Connor Shea Tine and Disc Drills
Silostar Silage Cutter
Busatis Mowers
Remington Chain Saws
Pathfinder ‘Ride On’ Mowers
Fahr Combine Harvesters
Fahr Turbo Mowers
Fahr Mower/Conditioner
Fahr ‘Centipede’ Haymakers
Fahr ‘Apollo’ Haymaker
Fahr ‘Helipede’ Windrowers
Fahr Self Loading Wagons
Fahr Silage Maize Harvesters
Deutz Tractors
Rabework Ploughs
Buy Fahr – The Best
Watveare Oversea Ltd.
Headquarters Road, West Wilts Trading Estate,
Westbury, Wiltshire, BA13 4JR.
Tel: 0373 823701
Member of the Dutton-Forshaw Group.
Advertisement in The Young Moonraker 1977, the 1977 Year Book of the Wiltshire Federation of Young Farmers Clubs:
A.J. Legg & Son
(established 1945)
Ploughing and all Cultivations undertaken.
Plant Protection Approved Contractor.
Book now for D/D with Bettinson or Rotaseeder Drills.
Orders now taken for ’77 season for grass silage; also
precision maize drilling and foraging by S/P machine,
Agricultural Contractor, Home Farm,
Boreham, Warminster
For Full Particulars and Good Efficient Service
ring Warminster 3266 or 2433
In his book Wiltshire, published by B.T. Batsford Ltd., in 1976, Ralph Whitlock noted the following remarks about the long grass meadows at Orcheston:
Old guide books and even Post Office directories extol the ‘long grass meadows’ at Shrewton and Orcheston. Those at Orcheston totalled only 2½ acres, but, says Thomas Davis of Longleat, writing in 1811, ‘the crop they produce, in some seasons, is so immense and of so good quality that the tithe hay of them was once sold for the sum of five guineas’. The grass is, in fact, the black grass, or creeping bent (Agrostis stolonifera), regarded nowadays as a weed. One supposes that here its reputation must have been achieved by comparison with the poor, thin herbage of the surrounding downs, though no doubt the grass grew luxuriantly in meadows subject to winter flooding.
Thursday 12th September 1974
Gerald Francis (Station Officer) gave 14 members of Warminster Young Farmers’ Club a tour of Warminster Fire Station at Portway on Thursday 12th September 1974. A vote of thanks for an interesting visit was given by YFC member Robert Page.
From The Visitors’ Guide To Wiltshire, circa 1973:
Above Westbury stands the oldest white horse [in Wiltshire].
It is said to have originally commemorated King Alfred’s victory over the Danes in the ninth century.
It was a carthorse until, in 1778, “a wretch by the name of Gee”, steward to Lord Abingdon, remodelled it – more elegantly he thought.
It is now 180 feet long and the height to the shoulder is 107 feet.
Originally, in each of the horses [in Wiltshire] there appear the sign of the Crescent Moon, which has no equine significance, so they may have all been modelled on a more primitive emblem.
Friday 22nd September 1972
A Minniapolis Moline Z tractor, No. Z.T.V. 570972, owned by G.R.A. Pickford of Stourton, near Warminster, is one of the exhibits in the Vintage Tractors section of the Fourth Great Working of Steam Engines at Stourpaine Bushes, near Blandford Forum, which takes place on Friday 22nd, Saturday 23rd and Sunday 24th September 1972.
Built in 1942, the tractor was purchased by its present owner’s father, Allan Pickford, in August 1942 from S. Braddick & Son, Gillingham, Dorset. Supplied on steel wheels, it was converted to rubber tyres in 1948. It has been in regular use. For the last two years it has been used mainly for belt work. The tractor came to this country from the U.S.A. under “lease-lend” and was allocated by the then Dorset W.A.E.C. for use at Hardings Farm, Buckhorn Weston.
A view to Westbury White Horse, in 1971.
Photographer unknown.
Wilfred Middlebrook, in part of his newspaper serialisation The Changing Face Of Warminster, written in 1970 and published in 1971, noted:
Past the rear of the Woodland Road estate, we find the whole area, both sides of Princecroft Lane, in the hands of builders. Soon the Princecroft Farm estate will cover the whole expanse, linking Broadway, Princecroft, Westleigh and Woodland Road, to form the largest collection of private dwellings the town has ever seen.
Wilfred Middlebrook, in The Changing Face Of Warminster (first written in 1960), updated in 1971:
. . . [the path] . . . on the new Damask Farm estate, one has now to negotiate the houses to regain the original path.
