OVER 260 top ploughmen and women showed their traditional skills to admiring crowds at the British National Ploughing Championships which returned to West Somerset for the first time since 2011 last weekend.
Rural life enthusiasts watched competitors battling to be selected to represent England in the 2019 world ploughing contest at the two-day event on the 200-acre Bishops Lydeard site of farming company K S Coles.
Attractions included vintage tractors and traction-engines, ploughing with heavy horses crafts and rural displays and demonstrations of the latest agricultural machinery.
“We would like to say a huge thank-you to the Coles family for providing a wonderful site and making us feel so welcome,” said Sue Frith chief executive of championship organisers the Society of Ploughmen.
“It was fantastic to see so many visitors who helped to make the event a resounding success.”
Major crowd-pleasers were the heavy horses. Not all had turned up to plough, but visitors were far from disappointed as 15 pairs took them back to days gone by as they showed off their skills in the art of ploughing, dressed in their finery.