In harness

The Museum of English Rural Life (MERL) "houses the most comprehensive national collection of objects, books and archives relating to the history of food, farming and the countryside".

It's a fascinating place to visit, with all sorts of objects evoking memories of a way of life that's passed. There are cheese presses and milk bottles... collections of scythes and other menacing-looking implements (alongside an array of animal traps and...man traps!)... shepherds' smocks...baskets...

There are steam engines and a couple of early tractors, but much of the space is filled with wagons and carts of every kind, along with many different types of plough. And it's these things that emphasise what's maybe the biggest change in farming in the last century: the replacement of working horses by mechanisation.

If you're looking for music to view blips by, have a listen to Heavy Horses by Jethro Tull. It does a far better job than I ever could of putting across just what we've lost now that these noble, gentle giants are no longer part of our countryside.

This is a detail from a horse harness.