Ryedale Folk Museum

Today, there was much activity in the museum workshop, especially on the old MF 135. John Paul was fitting a new speedo on this tractor as the old one had been broken for ages. I gave him a hand, but unfortunately we discovered the cable had broken between the speedo and gearbox, so we ordered a new cable as well. We also shifted a bit of machinery around with the view to a bit of restoration of tractors and implements to their former glory. Speedo with 0 hours on the clock Volunteers John Paul & John Nichol One Ruston & Hornsby Seed Drill  I found this documentary on You Tube about Massey Ferguson production in Canada, the U.S and Britain. They don't make em like they used to eh? Jonathan S

Where could you go in a museum and see activities from completely different eras within yards of each other? Ryedale Folk Museum, of course. We had an excellent group of iron age re-enactors who were demonstrating different crafts from the period. These included wood-turning, pottery, weaving and textiles. Today, volunteers and staff were treated to a lovely dinner of stew, cottage pie, beetroot, and jacket spuds. Us blokes were even lucky enough to get a pint of Black Sheep. For afters - if you had room, was a smashing apple crumble and cream. Thanks very much to everyone who prepared that lovely meal. After dinner we got busy harvesting the cornfield. We got off to a slow start due to the weather, it was very overcast and drizzly before dinner, but we got the field done with the binder and stooked the sheaves. The binder probably dates from the 1940's, a Sunshine Massey Harris from Australia, and the tractor used to pull it is a MF 135 from the 1970's. Jonathan Severs

Here is our latest blog about the work that is carried out by dedicated staff and volunteers at Ryedale Folk Museum. At the moment there are several projects going on, one of which is restoring a great model village - kindly donated from Harlow Carr Gardens, Harrogate. Another is the building of a new shed to help preserve the vintage agricultural machinery and implements. Kevin, the Museum Manager is in this video parking one of the museum tractors. This M.F 135 was restored to its former glory at the museum, after spending many years as a scaper tractor on a dairy farm.