Vintage Horticultural and Garden Machinery Club

I can see the confusion. Handlebars aside, looking at the tin work it looks very similar to the Atco Ensign from the brochures…but then many mowers do look the same. Perhaps an upgrade of their mower to an Atco, much like sticking go-faster stripes to a car!
 
Anyone any ideas?

I never thought to look at the VHGMC stuff, instead I looked through some magazines! That’ll teach me!

Many thanks for linking the two threads together.

B.O.I.L stands for British Overhead Irrigation Ltd. So can assume it’s from one of their irrigation systems, dating from the early 1950’s onwards.

Bits of info say that the Wizard Simplex was an oscillator irrigating crops 25′ to each side, does this sound right?

B.O.I.L were for many years based at Upper Halliford, Shepperton, Middlesex. I’ll…[Read more]

Andy, Many thanks for the information.

I have had a look and found information on the Festival Auto Culto. I have found an advert and have a photo from which the advert image was taken. I’ll attach both. I’m sure that if I look harder I’ll find some other manufacturers that attended.

The archives relating to the Festival are held by the National…[Read more]

That’s a good question!

Anything that’s a snapshot in time, so an item with box (small hand tools etc), with instructions, with an advert from the time and with price or receipt or some history.

I’d suggest anything unusual or anything from a small factory rather than a generic re-badged item from a massive churn-them-out factory. This is…[Read more]

I don’t know much about Flymo’s but I’ve had a search and found an advert from 1980. It looks very similar and based on that I’d say it is a GL 19 inch. They were advertised from the late-ish 1970’s into the 1980’s and maybe beyond that.

I’m not sure how many of the 600 series tractors are in the UK. I’ve done some research on the Case range of garden and lawn tractors as we have quite a few in the collection but not a 600.

Research has thrown up a lot of newspaper adverts from independent machinery dealers advertising the Case range of tractors.

I have a Case brochure and…[Read more]

The Fairlawn instructions can be downloaded from the members section:

Literature-Downloads

I’m re-doing the download pages bit at present.

Thanks for that Charlie.

In 2014 I made a short video walking through the horticultural exhibits at Newby Hall, North Yorkshire. Video is on Youtube, I haven’t yet shared it on FB.

One day we will all get back to wandering through machinery again.

When I researched the Ginge article for the VHGMC I struggled to find a great deal about Ginge. However, it did appear that the push cylinder mowers were very popular at the time but my guess is that many will have ended up in the back of sheds, got corroded and then ended up at the tip. Newer versions are available today which shows how good the…[Read more]

The brochures show a red and silver colour scheme as well.

Thanks for the replies and useful info.

I’ve had another look. Batric adverts indicate that they were making electric powered machines back in the 1960’s and were still selling them into the 1980’s. Indeed it does appears mobility scooters etc became a main avenue in the 1970’s and beyond and were a great success.

Thanks for the info on Braune…[Read more]

Hello Ian

The only image I can find is of a 1905 advert. At the bottom is mentioned the Excelsior and Improved Excelsior. ‘The Excelsior was awarded first prize, Royal Horticultural Society, 1886; also first prize, Paris Int. Ex. 1889. Many additional advantages are included in the 1905 pattern of the Improved Excelsior’