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Summertime in Powys: House Martins, Hay-Making and Hens

It's hey ho, the scuffle hoe, the summer has arrived. There's sun for the hay-making, and meal and water for the bantam hen and chicks.

School programme and Educational film 1957 14 mins Silent

From the collection of:

Logo for National Screen and Sound Archive of Wales

Overview

At Maesmawr Hall, Welshpool, house martins are nesting, the elderflower is out, lambs and calves have arrived, donkeys are being donkeys and mangolds are being scuffle hoed. Then comes the hay-making, the tedder rolling/aerating the hay, the baler turning out loose bales. Hand-raking hay into rounded stooks takes place at a farm visited in the Aran Fawddwy valley. Mrs Evans from the Lodge shows the Trant girls how to feed a bantam hen and chicks with meal and water by hand.

Ion Trant of Dovea Farm, Tipperary, Ireland, studied agriculture in Canada and then joined the staff of the Welsh Plant Breeding Station, Aberystwyth, where he met his future wife, Janet Owen of Maesmawr Hall, Welshpool, both of them working on developing improved grasses for upland farms with George Stapledon. The Trants farmed at Maesmawr Hall, the adjoining farm Cefn Du, and a hill farm - Esgairdraenllwyn at Llaithddu, Llandrindod. Ion felt conscious of an emerging gulf between town and country and his response was to welcome school visits to his farms and also to create/film the "Country Close-Up" series for children (BBC TV - 1956-62), often featuring his own three – David, Clare and Rosemary.