Cressing Temple Barns: The Working Farm

A new project at Cressing Temple Barns called ‘The Working Farm’ will see the on-site farm machinery being given a new lease of life to make them more visually presentable to visitors.

Posted on 14th June 2024

Initiated by the Friends of Cressing Temple, The Cressing Community Shed and supported by Essex County Council and Jeffrey Giblin - an expert in renovating historic agricultural machinery - the project will see four farm machines restored to their previous glory.

Currently situated in the Cart Lodge at Cressing Temple Barns is the Bentall number two mower with a seat (which is horse-drawn), the Bamford number seven mower without a seat and the two-furrow top-soil plough (both of which are for use with a tractor) and the Tumbril cart. They will all be restored to make them representative of their original condition.

Over the course of the project the machinery will be delivered to Airblast, a local business in Gosfield, where it will be shot blasted and primed.

The shot blasting process removes any rust and/or other surface contaminations on the machinery prior to the primer being applied. The application of the primer prevents rust, ingress of water and/or other surface blemishes - which are likely to occur due to the machine’s ‘open-to-the-elements’ storage location - from re-occurring.

Painting all of the machinery, along with any other minor repairs, will be carried out by the volunteers at Cressing Temple Barns.

At this stage the purpose of ‘The Working Farm’ project is not to restore the machinery to a fully operational condition.

While this isn’t currently part of ‘project, the machinery could be brought back to fully operational condition as a separate exercise at a later date.