Model Farming
Take a Closer Look at Farming
Many of us first encounter agriculture through the tiny world of farm toys and scale models. These little replicas help shape our understanding of life in the countryside and play an important role in charting rural change.
Learn more about the role of models in promoting and selling farm machinery. Take a peek at over 150 examples drawn largely from a collection of farm toys given to the Museum by Peter-Wade-Martins (find out more about all the items on display here), as made by an enormous range of UK companies (find out more about UK farm toy manufacturers here). Try your own hand at carpet farming.
This gallery might transport you back to your own childhood, or help you step into the playful shoes of Pippa Hughes with her play farm or Jon Hynard and his pedal tractors.
Exciting collections visible here include the Museum’s own full-size ‘little grey Fergie’, teaching and manufacturing models of early farm equipment, and the first ever mass-produced toy tractor.
