The British Shows of 2025

The oldest and the quietest

One of the most interesting of the working demonstrations was the steam plowing display. A steam-plowing engine is essentially a traction engine with a large winch drum situated under the boiler. These plowing engines always worked in pairs, with the first engine positioned at one end of the field, and the second engine at the other end of the field. The implement (in this case a plow) is pulled between the two machines by means of a steel winch cable. One might well wonder: why does the plow have to be winched from one traction engine to the other? And why doesn’t the traction engine simply pull the plow along behind itself like a tractor?

The answer is largely down to our wet climate here in the U.K. Much of the time, the land here was, and still is, far too damp and sinky to support a great big traction engine. Traction engines have a lot of strength, but they are not all-terrain vehicles, so a system was devised where these machines would work as a team, and movement would be restricted to simply shifting forward a few feet at a time along the headland of the field. Each engine would pull the implement in turn, and at the end of each “pull,” the implement would turn around and return to the other engine. The engines move forward with the width of the work, and in good conditions it is said that a plowing set (consisting of two engines) could plow 20 acres in a day. This meant that a steam plowing set could do many times the work of a team of horses, and if necessary, the steam plow could plow far deeper than any plow that a horse could pull.

These plowing steam sets were, of course, extremely expensive, so most were owned by contractors, and only the more wealthy landowners would have used them. The golden age of steam plowing was between 1860 and 1920, but some pairs continued to work during the hard times of WWII.

Most plowing engines were built by John Fowler. Fowler was born in Wiltshire, England, in 1826, and he is credited as the inventor of steam-driven plowing machines. Both of the plowing engines that were seen working in the Shrewsbury Steam Fair were built by Fowler, one in 1908 and one in 1916. Although these plowing engines were some of the oldest machines on the show-ground, they were also among the quietest of the working machines on the site, in complete contrast to the nearby tractor pulling competition, which was extremely noisy and smokey!

Another peaceful scene in an otherwise busy event was the line-up of traditional gypsy caravans. Gypsies, or to give them their correct name, “Roma,” have been in the U.K. for at least 500 years, and when the first of these people arrived it was incorrectly assumed that they came from Egypt, so they were referred to as “Egyptians,” and this word gradually morphed into “Gypsies.” As a nomadic people, the Roma moved from place to place, living off the land and often obtaining farm work at harvest time. Roma also peddled their hand-made wares, which included pegs and baskets, some Roma dealt in horses, and others became known as fortune-tellers. Central to the story of the Roma are their brightly painted horse-drawn caravans. The correct name for a gypsy caravan is a vardo, and here in Shrewsbury were several vardos on display.

A most unorthodox tractor

It’s not often that one gets to see a Doe Triple D tractor, as there were only around 300 built, but we were lucky enough to see two of these extraordinary looking tractors at Shrewsbury Steam Fair. The Doe Triple D (also known as the Doe Dual Drive) is described as “one of the most unorthodox tractors ever built,” and there’s no doubt that this is true. Built by linking two Fordson Major tractors together, one behind the other, the Doe Triple D has the look of something that a desperate but resourceful farmer has put together, and in essence that is exactly what it is.

The idea for Doe Triple D came about when a farmer named George Pryor coupled a pair of Fordson Major tractors together to create a high powered machine to work on his own farm. While this crazy looking machine did the job, it clearly required some alterations before it could be a marketable product. An English company known as Ernest Doe & Sons came to the rescue and agreed to build an improved and saleable version, which they produced in 1958.

The concept of the dual drive tractor came about because, at the time, there were very few high horsepower tractors on the market, and many of our existing tractors were inadequate when it came to pulling a large plow in heavy ground. Pryor’s “creation” left the leading tractor with its front wheels in place, meaning that the machine required two drivers.

When Ernest Doe built the improved version of the dual drive tractor, he removed the front tractor’s front wheels to make the tractor able to be controlled by one driver, because the controls of the lead tractor were operated by slave cylinders, which were in turn operated by master cylinders on the rear tractor. The last of the Doe Triple D tractors were built in 1964, by which time more powerful tractors were commercially available. It is a real treat to see one of these bizarre looking machines in the flesh so to speak, and I’m very grateful that the owners of these tractors made the effort to haul these beasts to a show where they could be appreciated, and puzzled over, by the general public.

As well as some of the great British tractors of the past, our shows also feature tractors from all over the world. One overseas tractor that has played a part in British farming history is the Zetor; Zetor tractors were built in Brno, Czechoslovakia, from 1946, and, unlike some other Eastern Block machines, the Zetor tractor was built to a high standard and came fitted with many innovative features. Zetor provided high power tractors with modern cabs, which offered a rollover protection system, and it is credited with being the company to produce the World’s first safety cab complete with vibration control and noise reduction. The combination of these modern specifications, coupled with a low purchase price and efficient local dealerships, meant that Zetor tractors sold well in the U.K., and many vintage and classic examples of these tractors can be still be seen in our shows and events.

One of my neighbors bought a new Zetor tractor in the early 1970s, simply because he felt he was getting “more for his money” than if he had bought a British made tractor. Far from being cheaply made foreign junk, the Zetor was well designed, comfortable, and much more affordable than the British-built tractors of the period. There has existed a certain snobbery in the tractor fraternity, where farmers and collectors have felt that any tractor that was built in a poorer country than ours must be inferior. However, I think people now have accepted that Zetor tractors were generally well-built machines, and that they have indeed played a part in our agricultural history. For that reason they can rightfully stand alongside our British built Ferguson, Fordson, and David Brown tractors of the period.

American influence

The tractors that feature most heavily in our shows here are British tractors first, and American tractors next. The U.K. has a long history of using American tractors. After all, many U.S. tractors were sent here to assist us during wartime as part of the 1941 Lease Lend Act. At the time, we were desperately short of high-powered tractors, and, due to wartime shortages, we had been forced to abandon tractor production in favor of building military equipment. Tractors like the McCormick Deering W-4 and the Minneapolis Moline UTS were shipped to the U.K., making the perilous journey across the seas, which were at the time heavily patrolled by German U Boats.

However, some of the most awe-inspiring tractors to arrive through the Lease Lend scheme were crawlers. These tracked machines allowed British farmers to plow up and cultivate land that was previously inaccessible to tractors, thus boosting our food production. The Caterpillar D2 in particular allowed farmers to conquer the rough ground, steep slopes, and damp terrain that our Fordson model N tractor could never negotiate.

While many of the antique American tractors that we have here in the U.K. arrived via the wartime Lease Lend Act, in more recent years, U.S. tractors have been imported to our shores in order to satisfy collector’s appetites for the exotic and the unusual. It’s true to say that, while most collectors here favor the tractors that were built in our own country, there are a large number of enthusiasts who have a special fondness for American tractors, tractors. So, in any British vintage tractor event, there will always be a healthy percentage of U.S. tractors. One of the more unusual American tractors that I spotted at a 2025 show was the Baker 25/50, which I encountered at the recent Vale Vintage Show held in Caerwys, North Wales. I saw this unusual looking tractor going around the show-ring, and I decided to follow the tractor back to the parking area in order to speak to the owner, in the hope of finding out a bit more about the tractor. I had never heard of a Baker tractor, and I knew I was going to have to do a bit of research to find out about the company. But, first and foremost, I wanted to find out how this particular example had found its way to this little show in the top corner of Wales.

It turned out that the Baker 25/50 actually belonged to a gentleman named Harold Baker, who admitted that the fact that he shared the same name as the tractor had indeed played a part in attracting him to this rather special machine. Harold explained that he bought the tractor over a decade ago via an online auction, and like most collectors of antique American tractors, he was drawn to it because it was something very different to most of the collectable tractors that we generally see here on the rally circuit.

Harold’s Baker tractor was built in 1927, making it one of the earlier examples of the model, but he is keen to point out that it would originally have been fitted onto steel wheels, and it would also have originally been green in color.

I’m sure most U.S. tractor enthusiasts will know something of the company who built the Baker 25/50, but for those who like me are unfamiliar with the company history here are a few facts:

• The A.D. Baker Co was founded by Abner D Baker in 1898.
• The company was located at Swanton, Ohio, and was famous for building steam traction engines, threshers and large gas tractors.
• The A.D. Baker Co. built their last steam engines in 1929 by which time their tractor business was thriving.
• When the 25/50 tractor was sent to Nebraska for testing, it was found to have 75hp at the belt and 55 at the drawbar, which made it the highest horsepower rating of any tractor tested at the time.
• Production of Baker tractors ended during WWII and the company ceased in 1953.

While the Baker tractor might not be a rarity in the U.S., it is certainly an unusual tractor here. Importing a tractor of this size to the U.K. is an expensive undertaking, and for that reason, most of the antique American tractors that we see here in the U.K. are somewhat smaller. For instance, Ben Hughes’ neat little 1928 Hart Parr 12-24, which was spotted on the working field at Shrewsbury pulling a set of disk harrows. Ben, who is based in Cheshire, North Wales, is a keen collector of old U.S. tractors, and so extensive is his collection that he seems able to bring a different American tractor to each show he attends, and it is always a pleasure to meet Ben and to hear about what delight he is exhibiting this time.

Josephine Roberts lives on an old-fashioned smallholding in Snowdonia, North Wales, and has a passion for all things vintage. Email her at josiewales2021@aol.com