No 225. THE IRON HORSE. pb Groat 07.12.2012.

Many a crofter had a horse in the Barn, or the Stable. No feeding required, it was a British Anzani Iron Horse. I do not know when the Anzani Iron Horse was invented, but it has been around for a very long time now. No doubt there were other makes than Anzani, the Trusty comes to my mind. But it was a crofter’s machine par excellence. The Cub Cadet was another one, more of a very wee tractor.

 There is a good Iron Horse at Mary-Ann’s Cottage at Dunnet which I believe is still in working order. The Cottage is closed for the winter.

One lies at Newtonmore Farm Museum on the road South, well worth a visit in passing in its own right with much else of old farm machinery and bits and bobs. A good restaurant is there too for a quick coffee, or a comfort stop!!

They are to build a large new display shed there to incorporate the  material still in Kingussie Farm Museum, which is now closed to the public. Bob Powell, who is in charge of it all there and at Newtonmore, took me there for a look. Guess what, there was an old, very old indeed, simple threshing mill from Houston’s Mill at John o’ Groats. Saved from the scrap heap, thankfully.

 It had been built by McKidd in Thurso Foundry in 1841, and is by a wide margin the oldest threshing mill I know of. On both sides of it were many names and signatures written with an old joiner’s lead pencil. Difficult to read, faint, but perhaps if scanned with an ultra violet light the names can be brought back to life. I think every one now long gone in Groats must have left their mark. 

Like at Hendrie Geddes Mill in Mey in Feb 14^th 1664, where there was a bit of nonsense with a lassy having her clothes lifted by young Jon Geddes, to the great amusement of others there, Groats Mill must have been a warm and snug meeting place for locals in an evening.  No doubt at all behaviour would have been much better by Houston’s time!!!

Life is well displayed at Newtonmore of days not too long gone, thatched houses, old  implements, a garden plot growing tatties and kale and much else. The illustration shown is of the Iron Horse there.

Vintage Machinery Clubs usually have a few at their Shows, sometimes in their own right, sometimes as an adjunct to a County Show or a Vintage Machinery Show. There is annually one at John o’ Groats..

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There are still ploughing matches held entirely of Iron Horses at work. I opened up a few on the computer and put on my ear phones to listen to the old sound of working Iron  Horses. Fascinating to watch and a good illustration in its own right of a part of what crofting must have been like yesterday.

  They were very workable on a croft, supplanting a horse or even a cow or two for ploughing. The economics of that was to be able to keep another cow and to have a calf to sell. The cow could provide more milk to make into cheese or butter.

The Iron Horses I have seen mostly had a plough body attached but there were other uses to which they could be adapted. Later ones could be seen with rubber tyres but iron wheels with spade lugs were the ones I remember.

Though I never worked one I think you could add such attachments as a small harrow, a drill ridger, a scuffler. There was one which had a small knife mower across the front, useful enough to cut a patch of hay. And no doubt other makes I cannot recall.

 I remember one that a knacky crofter had adapted to have a small drawbar and he had built himself a wee cairty to pull behind it. Did the job.

They were used by gardeners who sometimes had a small portion of ground in a village or town and worked as a Market Gardener, making a slender living. There was one in Wick just to the Parish Kirk side of where the Norseman Hotel now stands, or possibly the Hotel  now stands on top of it. Danny Morrison’s Bus from Castletown via Barrock, Greenland and Lyth stopped just beside it on arriving at Wick so we could admire the constant changing of the very neat rows of various vegetables, sold on the spot and as fresh as you could get.

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 I did not know that gardener other than a Hello in passing, but he worked there for a very long time. No doubt some ancient Wicker could put a name to him.