IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Old Home Farm Barns, High Street, ANDOVER, SP11 8QX

The earliest form of cultivation consisted simply of scratching the soil with a branch or antler to enable a seed to be buried. Early ploughs did no more than this. Later models were designed to bury the remains of the previous crop and surface debris. The Romans designed a plough with stout iron teeth mounted on a wooden sole which turned the soil. Celts and Romans, using light ploughs, adopted the practice of cross-ploughing, so that their fields tended to be almost square. The Saxons, using a heavy, eight-oxen plough, made their fields long to reduce the number of turns. The old English furlong, one-eighth of a mile, is derived from ‘furrow long’. The earliest mould-board plough, similar to that used today, dates from Saxon times. But the really modern mould-board dates from the 18th century with the introduction of iron. Double-furrow ploughs, pulled by two horses, were common until tractors were introduced. Today, powerful tractors pull banks of ploughs which cut many furrows at the same time. This plough stands outside of the village pub.

A K6 telephone box and a George VI reign postbox beside the village road near to the Plough Inn.

Sadly, the public house is closed and to let.

This building is now part of a private house, but used to be one of the hubs of village life years ago.

Previously photographed in happier times Image, the pub is now closed and to let.

The Plough Public House on a snowy winter's day.

A wintery Plough early on a winters evening.

The Plough pub in its wintercoat.

Looking up Chapel Lane after a heavy fall of snow.