The 2011 Belvoir Castle Steam Festival tweaked their layout again this year with the stationary engines swapping with the miniature steam to return to their usual place. The classic caravans and campers were almost in with the general camping with the entrance to their area aligned with a relocated model tent and motorcycle marquee. This allowed room for an enlarged dog agility area and an L-shaped line for the oil engines. Elsewhere, the commercials were lined up in a herringbone manner, which was great for photography and for access.

The steam section saw a number of showmen’s engines on display, however, almost half were the smaller Foster engines with only a smattering of the larger Fowler and Burrell machines. There was a representative selection of steam lorries with one example each of Yorkshire, Foden & Sentinel, plus the eye-catching Sentinel tractor repatriated from Australia. Elsewhere, Locomobile and Likamobile steam cars were present and the miniature steam ranged from 1” to 6” scale models.

The tractor section this year celebrated Ferguson, Massey Ferguson and Massey Harris as a change to the single-cylinder and Ford & Fordson displays seen previously. Elsewhere the other tractors were lined up in year order with the Fenland-based Samson Sieve-grip of 1911 being the oldest machine on display. Rutland & Notts groups of the NVTEC, Lincs David Brown owners and the Vale of Belvoir Machinery Group all had very good diverse displays.

Up the other end of the field, the commercials put on a superb show with the now customary REVS ERF gathering as well as the Road Recovery & Rescue Association. The latter’s display was more geared towards the modern equipment but there were some classic machines such as Foden, Bedford TM & MK, MAN, Volvo F10. Whoever had the bright idea of parking the commercials as they did has to be applauded in my opinion as it gave clear ¾ views of all the vehicles. The rarity this year was the possibly unique low-line Leyland prototype, which was new to Clayton Dewandre as a brake-component testing rig.

The cars multiplied on Sunday as expected and there was a very good mix of British and continental marques on display. The best club display I think should have gone to the Renault owners who supplied around a dozen vehicles from the 1950s through to the 1970s, including 2 Caravelles and a trio of Renault 16s, all from around 1971. I recall my uncle having one of the last made of these, in a metallic silver green with tinted windows, 1 think on a S-plate around 1977-8, and I hadn’t seen one for ages, let alone three at once.

The motorcycle marquee had a very good selection of veteran, classic and a few modern machines which were not too close to each other to preclude clear photography, another plus. Likewise the model tent alongside was not overly crowded despite it spitting with rain outside at the time of our visit. I don’t spend too long around the craft tent, as very often they seem to be only an indoor market with a lot of people only selling brought-in products rather than making their own. I stress this does not apply to all by any means but at the bigger shows they are more of a business than crafting for pleasure.

However, despite filling several memory cards with pictures, which reflects the amount of exhibits on display in 2011, it won’t be one of the best years because of the weather again. Saturday was Ok and mainly sunny, but Sunday was showery and very windy. Indeed, with the wind in our face, it was early afternoon before we dared to open the front of the awning on our bottle display, and the public were generally not keen to hang about, but again the organisers are sufficiently confident to put a date in the programme for next year.