Eastern Counties Scything Competition, Wimpole Estate, Cambridgeshire.
A wonderful setting in the National Trust Wimpole Estate, Simon Damant, head forester organises an annual rural craft fair and scything competitions for fun and the more serious.
New champion, Michael Gerrard with his English snath combined with Austrian blade won the 5m x 5m in roughly one 1 minute 30 seconds. Kevin won the 10m x 10m in 4 minutes 38 seconds and also won for the first time, the quarter of an acre in 1 hour 16 minutes.
The unique aspect of this competition is that there is no shortage of grass and we are able to compete on the larger areas. A lot of the talk was about next year’s competition which will be the top scythers competing to finish one acre of grass each! Historically this was considered to be the amount a skilled scyther could do in one day — Watch this space!
Black and white photo credits: Simon Damant