Farmers to plough straight furrow for top award

Some of the country's best ploughmen and women will descend with their tractors, horses and steam engines on Warwickshire in October, attempting to win a prestigious national title.

The 75th British National Ploughing Championships takes place at Austrey on 10 and 11 October of next month on a farm near Twycross Zoo.

Almost 240 of the UK's best ploughers will be demonstrating their skills, trying to create the smoothest, straightest and most consistent furrow in 250 acres (101 hectares) of farm land.

Organiser Sue Frith, who comes from a farming background in South Yorkshire, said "it's the pinnacle of British ploughing, this is what the ploughmen and women aim for winning."

Frith, from Doncaster, took over running the Society of Ploughmen from her father and 43 years on, she is still doing it.

She originally planned to help him out for a year while waiting to join the police.

However, she enjoyed it so much, that she gave up her ambition to become a police officer and stayed with the society.

"It's just a really nice, friendly, agricultural, traditional event. And we have some lovely people involved.

"Each year we move around the country. We're lucky to be in the Midlands for two years in a row because next year we're in Northumberland, the year after in Somerset"

The 2025 event saw hundreds of competitors from across the country plough land at Allesley near Coventry, with Atherstone farmer Richard Ingram winning the Vintage Hydraulic category for a fourth consecutive year.

Ingram has won 13 titles and has taken the top prize in the Vintage Hydraulic category, for vehicles made in the 1950s and fitted with the Ferguson three-point linkage system, for the last four years.

He drives a Massey Ferguson 35, one of the more than 3.3 million machines made at the company's former Banner Lane factory in Coventry.

"I started in 2000 basically, so I've been doing it 26 years now. I don't do quite so many as I used to but I'm still keen.

"I mean, this Saturday just gone, I went down to Fishguard and back in a day to plough in the Welsh National which was like a 430 mile round trip so that was a 3am start in the morning [and] I didn't get back till 9pm," he said.

For Frith, as farming practices change, the National Ploughing Championships helps to preserve the traditional methods.

"Ploughing on farms nowadays is not encouraged but it keeps that tradition alive and it keeps the skill going, and and it is lovely to see all the tractors the horses in a row.. but the skills that these men and women have are unbelievable, really."

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