The 2011 Ramsey Country Fayre & Plough Sunday was a much better event than that held in 2010, due mainly to fine and dry weather, but unfortunately, the situation didn’t improve for the stationary engine men. There were tractors aplenty ploughing, a reasonable turn-out of classic cars and stalls, together with several bygones & model displays mixed in with the bric-a-brac stalls.

However, for the stationary engine exhibitors who I think are now the hard-core following for this event, we could only get three engines along the front of the display where in the past there would have been almost two-dozen. Not only was there a cake-and-pie stall across the corner, but a baked potato stall in front of our compound. With only 15 engines in total, we ended up with 3-4 each side of a square and as a result those at the sides and back in particular saw only a small fraction of the available public. Sometimes you wonder why do you bother, as the current organisers seem determined not to listen to advice and knowledge gained over many previous years of this event.

Anyway, gripe over, engines were Wolseley (3), Fowler (2), Ruston (4), Bentall (1), Lister (2), Petter (1), Amanco (1) and one other, make not recorded. Driven equipment included kibbler mill, combined grinding and rolling mill, milking equipment and three different water pumps. Other engines such as Ruston, Lister & Petter examples could be seen around the museum, together with all kinds of driven equipment.

The ploughing was laid out in five rows of plots in the large field plus another two rows in the smaller back field, plus a few horse-ploughing demo plots. It was good to see a large number of young ploughmen having a go, with a few achieving very good results whilst overs were cutting their teeth on a tractor. Most outfits were using mounted ploughs but there were a goodly number of trailed outfits, and just one reversible. Apart from the horticultural Ransomes, there were two other crawlers, a Caterpillar and an International. The mix of tractors was largely as last year.

There was a reasonable selection of cars, mainly of British manufacture, plus a Teal replica of a Bugatti that had a few people fooled as to its authenticity. Half of the motorbikes hadn’t turned up, looking at the vacant marked out plots, which is infuriating as they have the space that sued to belong to the engine men.

There are a few changes around the museum insofar that the front field looks as if its been permanently grassed to provide car-parking or even an event field. Towards the back of the museum, an original wooden fen cottage lived in by one of the museum’s co-founders has been moved from its original site and largely re-constructed at the museum but I wonder if it’s been erected facing the right way?

To be honest, I’m not sure if we’ll be back next year. The Kettering Steam rally at Cranford is usually on the same weekend, and has built up quite a good reputation, so maybe we’ll try and go there, although I understand through the stationary engine forum that entries for engines were full in early mid-summer, but we always have the option of taking an awning display. This time last year, Ramsey was our penultimate event before the season finale at Newark but this year we have the option of a day out at Prickwillow Drainage Engine Museum and then the Norfolk Living History Fair at Mannington Hall in October.