A record busting weekend
The tenth anniversary Newark Vintage Tractor & Heritage Show was the best yet with a record busting 1,030 total exhibits entered and visitor numbers up by 7 percent on 2011, thus continuing the Show’s year on year growth.
Visitors & tractors in the Lady Eastwood Pavilion : Credit Mike Palin
The Trophy list, too, continues to grow with three new awards added to the illustrious array of cups, shields and salvers; winners came from far and near including the Republic of Ireland, Scotland and the south west.
Recognised as the biggest Show of its kind, the Newark Vintage Tractor & Heritage Show did not disappoint and several new features, including displays by the Dancing Does and heavy horses in the Main Ring plus cookery demonstrations by Teresa Bovey and Linda Hewett, proved extremely popular with visitors.
Saturday’s Vintage Auction, run by Brown & Co, drew a huge crowd who saw lots from 100 vendors go under the hammer; the highest of bid of the day was £4,800 for a 1969 Massey Ferguson 135 – other star bids included £3,200 for a Massey Ferguson 35 and a 1964 Ford 3000 attracted £3,000 – while Sunday’s Sort-Out had bargain hunters roaming the stalls from the moment the gates opened.
Newark Vintage Tractor & Heritage Show is proud to host the raffle draw for the charity Bicton Overseas Agricultural Trust (BOAT) and this year saw the tenth tractor that BOAT (www.boatagtrust.co.uk ) has raffled as its main prize with volunteers selling tickets at numerous events throughout the season. This year the tractor, a 1972 Ford 3000, donated by Tractor & Machinery Magazine was fully restored by staff and students led by Chris Jaworski of Bicton College engineering faculty with all the necessary parts provided by Vapormatic and a new set of tyres from Firestone. All proceeds from the raffle go towards training trainers and extension workers in agricultural management and sustainability and who work in the developing world with farmers to alleviate poverty. In 2012 just under £14,000 worth of tickets were sold, including almost £1,800 taken at Newark. The draw was performed by the Newark & Nottinghamshire Agricultural Society’s President, Mich Stevenson OBE DL, who pulled out the winning ticket bought by Mr Nigel Hantschar from Herefordshire.
Entering its second decade, next year’s Newark Vintage Tractor & Heritage Show takes place on Saturday 9th and Sunday 10th November 2013 when the Feature Tractors will be Massey-Harris, Wallis & Ferguson.