Koos Erasmus is the proud owner of a David Brown Cropmaster, which we in the Villiersdorp section of the West Cape Tractor & Engine Club call 'Koos' Power Steering tractor'.
“Old Power Steering”, Koos Erasmus’ David Brown Cropmaster, fitted with a very heavy scraper made by Bomford & Evershed, and no power steering equipment at all!
It is so called because it is not so equipped! Rather, it has an extremely heavy front-mounted scraper made by Bomford & Evershed of Salford Priors, Worcestershire in the UK. This makes one wish it was fitted with Power Steering!
The name plate identifying the attachment is riveted to the top of the blade frame. Does /52 refer to 1952?
Until seeing this attachment, I thought that Bomford & Evershed confined their activities to contract road buliding.
The front-mounted scraper blade is controlled by a system of (heavy) linkages connected to the arms of the three-point-link at the back of the tractor
No so! says frequent Sandstone Heritage Trust website reader Bernard Dodd, from Cleethorpes on the east coast of England, who spotted a picture of ‘Old Power Steering' attached to a Power Binder (see http://www.sandstone-estates.com/interim/Andy_Selfe/Stettyn_Cellars/Another_Successful_Family_Day_at_Stettyn_Cellars.html ), and kindly sent in this information:
"After the Napoleonic wars England saw a boom in road building, the Bomford family who had farmed in Worcestershire for generations diversified into contracting which led them to develop steam driven machines.
"Under the direction of Raymond Bomford the Bomford company was registered in 1904, this in time led to the development of a variety of cultivation machines that could be used in conjunction with steam powered agricultural vehicles. In the late 1940’s Bomford's developed the first balance arm hedge cutter.
"Today Bomford design, manufacture and distribute over 100 different model options to every corner of the world, supplying markets in Hedge and Verge mowing, Stewardship management and cultivation."
Bernard goes on to say, “Until I retired to live on the east coast I lived all my life near Rugby in leafy Warwickshire and some years ago, before the A46 route was diverted with a new road, I used to drive past the depot of Bomford & Evershed in the old railway yard at Salford Priors many times each year, never really noticing much activity there but always intrigued by the amount of machinery seemingly being produced .
“As you have re-stirred my interest, I have spent some time looking up about the company on the website and found some interesting old pictures on the Windows of Warwickshire website
Piece of agricultural machinery made by Bomford and Evershed, Salford Priors. 1890s
“Here is a strange piece of machinery referred as 'agricultural', coupled to a Crawler tractor, I cannot understand what it is, but the date given makes it more intriguing..
“I also notice the Centenary of the company was reported in “Old Glory” in issue 182 of April 2005.
“Sadly there appears little on the web in the way of photos of their products although I did find a reference and photo of a ditcher. Could this be a similar machine?
The Company is now called Bomford-Turner and their web site is
http://www.bomford-turner.com/
“The postal address of the company is Worcestershire but Salford Priors is actually in Warwickshire.
“It just shows that a photo of a tractor brings back a flood of memories and makes me start looking back at the past! I used a Bomford hedge trimmer back in the 1960s on MF 35. The whole contraption was a bit weird compared with today’s machines but it did the job quite well, and I notice that a Bomford Living Van No 98 has just been sold by Preston Services.”
Andy Selfe (Photos by Denis Usher)