Thousands crowd to watch the Newbury and District Agricultural Society's annual Ploughing Match
Around 1,000 people conversed on West Berkshire at the weekend to enjoy the annual Ploughing Match.
The event, which is organised by the Newbury and District Agricultural Society, took place at Rookery Farm, Curridge on Saturday.
Just under 40 ploughmen from across the south competed for a number of trophies, while others battle for titles in the produce categories.
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Ploughing match chair Judith Marcham said it had been “a very successful day”.
“It went really, really well,” she added. “We had a good number of ploughmen and there were lots of domestic entries.
“We also had steam engines there for people to look around.
“It was well supported, with a lot of people coming to support it.
“We had two ladies ploughing this year, which is quite unusual, so we were able to present the Gerald Fisher Trophy for best lady ploughmen this year, which was super.”
This year’s overall champion was Derek Turner, from Andover, ploughing with a Fordson Major tractor with a two furrow Ransome plough.
The domestic competitions saw prizes awarded for the best sloe gin, hedgerow liqueur, children’s cupcakes, apple pie, Victoria sandwich, cheese straws and jam.
There were also nine scarecrows and three collages entered by schools from across the whole of Berkshire – with one even coming all the way from Ascot.
This year’s event was held on the weekend that the Newbury Show would usually be taking place, but will return to its traditional date of the third weekend in October for next year. The site of the match is still to be confirmed.
There were also a number of trade stands, which were “very pleased” to be taking part in the annual event.
This was the second year back for the event after adverse weather and the coronavirus pandemic curtailed the 2019 and 2020 matches.