Boy, steam ploughing with two engines must be a treat!  I know what you mean about the noise and bother with modern ploughing--I've spent enough time doing that.  We had 960 tillable acres and every fall after harvest we had to do our thing.  Sometimes in June or July we would plow down a green manure crop.  INTERMINABLE noisy job! Four bottom 14 inch plow.  56" in a pass, a little over 9 feet off the field each time we made it around. Often we would plow the entire 160 acre field in one piece.  Half a mile, and only 9 feet off that each time around.

But we did have an 8 bottom John Deere plow we used to demonstrate at the shows also, and even though the steam engine was pulling the plow directly, if you were on the plow, you could hear the roots snapping as the plow went over the field.  I liked that, and I bet it 's quite an experience to ride one of those 2-way plows in the middle of a field and listen to the silence.  Nice. I've seen a balance plough, but never seen a cultivator or other implement for use with a ploughing engine.  Seen some pictures on the web.  There are a couple steam ploughing websites.

Thanks for the nice account of farming in England!

Regarding Leigh Spinners engine. I remember this engine very well indeed. As a young sparkie I was always working at this mill.The last tiime I was their would be about 1970/71 doing the annual electrical maintenance (on my own!).

I also remember the power cuts of the early 70's. They wanted to run the alternator to get some power for carpet production, so we had to get a farm tractor rigged up to a generator, with a flat belt drive fom the tractor (pre Honda genny days), get power to the oil-fired Lanky boiler, raise steam, and away she went! Always kept in clean condition - it was sad to see the pic on here.

I heard about the owners trying to get rid of it. I used to work with the engineer - Keith 'Taffy' Williams when we were contractors.

Taffy Williams was coming up to retirement when we last worked there.

Mercury,was there another engine in the other mill,iam sure Taffy Williams said there was and it was identical to the one that still remains...

You're dead right! I remember it being there. All rusted over and unloved, I think they broke out the engine house wall to scrap it.

I  remember the original owner - a Mr Horrocks. He was a very distinguished -looking gentleman, tall and slim, with white hair. He looked as if he was straight out of a Victorian portrait. Definitely an old Master in every sense of the word!

As for Taffy, well he is a lot older than me!

Here's a link to a website talking about a large steel mill engine being preserved in Youngstown, Ohio.  34 and 68 inch bores and 60" stroke:

http://www.todengine.org/index.html

http://www.astbury.org/photos/kbsm/kbsmmain.htm

From Kew Bridge museum.  Short movie clips of running engines.

further to the leigh spinners engine, the owners of the mill have put out a memo to all steam museums ect to try to find someone who is capeable of restoring the engine to its former glory. I am privalaged enough to have a video taken of the engine arround 10 years ago and concidering how long its been there its still in very good condition. it even still has the ropes attatched.

Hope this info is useful!

I am really pleased that the owners have at last decided to do something about this engine. When I saw my first mill engine, the late-lamented Scott-Hodgson at the Dee Mill in early 1977, one of the helpers had been the "tenter" who ran the Leigh Spinners engine at the finish a few months before. I seem to recall that he said they had only been running an alternator at the end.

This is the last of the 3 big mill engine to survive on site, along with the preserved engines at Trencherfield and Ellenroad. The owners did apply for planning permission to demolish the Leigh Spinners engine some time ago, but, luckily, it was refused. The group who are restoring the huge pit winding engine at Astley Green, a few miles from Leigh, did make a bid to restore it many years ago, but were rebuffed at the time.

There is a 4th big mill engine still in existence, just. This is the 1200 h.p. twin-tandem Buckley and Taylor from the Fern Mill at Shaw. The mill finished spinning in 1939, but the engine ran on for the new owners until the crank broke in the 1960s. I understand that it still exists, in pieces, in secure store. She was the last big geared engine to survive, and it will need a huge , and expensive, effort to restore her, it it ever happens.  

Stanley , you are right, a steel rolling-mill engine is a geared mill-engine by any definition! I had thought of the River Don engine in connection with Leigh Spinners, but only because it is the biggest engine that I've ever heard of that was re-rected on a new site. From what I've read, they had a heck of a job with it. It would have probably stayed a non-runner if someone hadn't realised that 2 spare main-bearing shells were holding up a table back at the steelworks! I think (hope) I've posted some pics for anyone who has not met this monster before.

I accept your concerns for the future of the Yates and Thom at Leigh Spinners. My feeling is that, up until now, the owner's attitude has been that, if they can't remove it, they will lock the door and hope it rots. Now it would appear that they might, at least, allow a group to arrest the deterioration. The longer it stays complete, secure, and under even minimum maintainance, the better chance it has of long-term survival, even though nothing is certain. I can quote you any number of engines that were dismantled and removed "for preservation" and now lay around in the long grass at various mueum sites, with little or no chance of re-erection. Some of the smaller ones are re-emerging: Bancroft have the engine from Cross Lane Mill at Skipton, Markfield Grange are about to start on the Marsden's tandem compound from Ossett. But these are the exceptions in the current climate. 

Who knows what might happen in the future? 30 years ago I walked the track of a narrow gauge railway in North Wales that had been ripped up for scrap during the war. I knew then it had no absolutely no chance of ever being rebuilt, the job was just too big. When the Welsh Highland Railway re-opens back to Portmadoc in 2009, after over 5 million pounds has been spent, I shall be pleased to be proved wrong!

Malcolm

Incidentally, I visited Masson Mill a few months ago. I was on a tight timetable not unconnected with someone else's shopping requirements, but I managed to get a look around. The engine wasn't open yet, but some of the machine rooms in the basement have that atmosphere that you just can't reproduce in a museum! I shall be back!

Malcolm