Country diary: A wild morning at the ploughing match | Rev Simon Lockett
<strong>Wye Valley, Herefordshire:</strong> There’s a sense of deep history to events like this, where mesmerising horses and precision ploughing fall under the judges’ eye
While Storm Amy whiplashes the trees, a sense of calm at the 181st Wormside Annual Ploughing Match. The fields are gently busy with horses and tractors, working at a steady pace, all competing in categories from hand-trip reversible ploughing and two-wheeled garden tractors to a fascinating heritage technique called the high-cut method. Entrants come from near and far, including Cornwall and the Isle of Sheppey in Kent (a 4am start for them). I watch the high-cut contest. This method of ploughing was developed in the mid 1800s to prevent seeds being scavenged by birds, back when seed was broadcast by hand. The tractor creates a deep groove, with the furrows looking like wedges of cheese. Metal boats drag behind, polishing the sides so the seed falls in the furrow; the farmer then returns to bury the seed with a harrow or a horse pulling a bush. The method isn’t in use in today’s highly mechanised industry (it was superseded by the seed drill), but it lives on in events like this, which have such a sense of deep history to them – Wormside is one of the oldest agricultural improvement societies in the country, and named after the nearby Worm Brook. The horses in particular are full of their ancient beauty. The contrast between their gentleness and immense power is mesmerising. Later I wander over to some other classes: Open and Vintage (referring to the tractor and plough), and Novice (the ploughman or woman). There I find Josh, aged 15, and his stepdad and mentor, Dan. They explain what the judges are looking for: straight ploughing lines with a furrow depth of 7in, and level seedbeds with an even distribution of soil. Josh is driving a Massey Ferguson 135 with a conventional two-furrow David Brown plough. He has already won two competitions this season; one more and he will no longer be a novice. With the gusts getting increasingly ferocious and a rainbow signalling rain from the west, I venture into the relative shelter of the marquee. It is full of arranged flowers, home-grown vegetables, cakes, jams and chutneys, all vying to win a silver cup. My first port of call, though, after my morning blast of Amy, is a flapjack and a coffee. • Under the Changing Skies: The Best of the Guardian’s Country Diary, 2018-2024 is published by Guardian Faber; order at guardianbookshop.com and get a 15% discount