The Farming Gallery

This gallery celebrates the history of farming in the North Tyne and Rede valleys – the most important industry in the area for hundreds of years. It should be remembered that this is a stock farming (cattle and sheep) area and the exhibition reflects this fact.There are a number of display panels explaining aspects of farming, the work of the shepherd, hay-making, hay meadows and dry stonewalling. There is a plough and a turnip chopper on display but arable farming was only a small part of the work of the farmers and shepherds in this Border area. The gallery has a number of tractor seats and an advertisement for Albion equipment. These link it to the work of the blacksmith. Various farming tools are displayed as well as other memorabilia. There are also some 'Chatterboxes' - machines that play short oral recordings of farming memories from the first half of the twentieth century; one of them has a recording of Border fiddle music.

Opposite the sheep farming display are a series of displays about dairying, suckler cattle, pig killing and the use of horse power – once again a link to the world of the blacksmith. The tractor shed is home to a ‘grey Fergie’, one of the earliest mass-produced tractors that brought a revolution in farming methods.

The following blogs are well worth reading:

http://woolshed1.blogspot.com/2008/10/daft-laddies-excitement-of-mart.html

http://blog.tarset.co.uk/

Both relate to aspects of farming/sheep farming in the North Tyne and Redesdale.

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