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Ploughs
at Cressing Temple
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Ploughs - a very brief history.
Farming is the oldest organised industry still surviving and at its heart has always been the plough. Developed from early handheld hoes to be drawn by animals the plough was already well established by Egyptian times when it was first recorded over 4000 years ago. The primitive plough made an open shallow furrow by pushing the soil away to either side, rather than turning it as we do today. The Greeks refined the Egyptian plough by adding wheels to guide it and control the depth of cutting. The Romans did little to improve on this.
In this country following the Romans, early British law required every ploughman to make his own plough, and that no one was entitled to use one unless they constructed it themselves. The word 'plough' appears to derive from the Saxon 'plou'. The Domesday book of 1068 AD records well over 80,000 plough teams. Since the standard Domesday plough team was a large one, drawn by eight oxen, this represents about 650,000 oxen.
There was little attempt to change the design of the plough until the mid 1600's with the Dutch being among the first in improving its shape. The real advance in the design of ploughs came with the patenting of Stanyforth and Foljambe's famous Rotherham plough in 1730. This worked on completely new principles; it was a light wooden plough with an iron share, mouldboard and coulter. Only one pair of horses or oxen was needed to draw it and one man could control the draught animals and plough.
In 1763 a Berwickshire man, John Small, applied mathematical calculations and science to the mouldboard shape. He experimented with varying mouldboard curvatures and patterns, eventually producing a universal cast iron shape that would turn the soil more effectively with less draft, wear and strain on the ploughman. The 'Scots Plough' as it was called, was the beginning of the plough we all know today.
The most enduring image is that of the horse drawn team but they became redundant for more efficient steam units with large multi furrow balance ploughs, quietly trundling up and down fields with only the sound of a whistle to indicate a change of ploughing direction.
Using converted horse ploughs, the more manoeuvrable wheeled tractor slowly took over from steam in the early 1900's and was the start of the format we are all familiar with today. When Harry Ferguson's 3-point linkage appeared in 1920, it totally revolutionised implement attachment and machine performance and has now become the universal norm.
