This film is part of Free

Horse Transport

Kathleen Arrowsmith's colourful compilation features horses, the Great Western Railway, harvesting, babies and a large herd of cows

Amateur film 1938 4 mins Silent

From the collection of:

Logo for Screen Archive South East

Overview

Kathleen Arrowsmith's delightful film starts at the Great Western Railway's station at Streatley, where a Suffolk Punch mare and her foal are being loaded onto a padded horse box while in the distance an express thunders past. A Fordson Standard N tractor is seen at work in the fields with a harvester while proud parents pose for the camera with their baby. Lastly we see cows waiting in the farmyard and ambling along a quiet country lane with their herdsman.

Mrs Kathleen Arrowsmith mainly filmed at Warren Farm near Streatley in Berkshire. Her films provide a vivid portrait of rural life on a working farm in 1930s Berkshire. Many of her films feature traditional hand and steam-powered mechanical farming techniques used to harvest wheat and other crops like vegetables. Her later films feature views of larger vehicles of the period, as well as views of rearing livestock and a variety of breeds of working horses on the family farm.