sad to see this

[Munkul]

The fate of Newton Rigg Agricultural College has been up and down over the last 18 months or more... I thought they had settled it.

Wrong. By complete chance i was on bispotter today and discovered the entire clearance sale.

The College was probably one of the best in the world at one time. Loads of farming stuff was basically invented there. Most of it superceded these days. My late uncle was on a team of students who developed a chisel plough in the 70s. I think it's the very chisel plough in the sale, i recognise it from a photo. Some old farms around the country still have "Newton Rigg" cow cubicle designs. If you're a young farmer in Cumbria, chances are, you went to learn at least something from Newton Rigg. They had everything, even livestock at one point. The place was a small farm, essentially.

Loads of crap and junk and a few good tools, most of it meaning nothing to anyone really, except to the next generation of farmers who won't have this stuff to learn from. It will cost at least half a million to gear up another agricultural college to the same level, only it will be cheap chinese gear they buy instead and it won't last 5 minutes.

The auction company gets 20% of everything. The owners get to settle their mismanaged debts and write the rest of it off. I bet they sell the land for houses.

The house always wins

(i may still bid on a few things, of course... I can literally walk to the college from my house!)

 

[Arc Tourist]

Sad to hear.

 

[gaz1]

Farm at 125-year-old agricultural college saved with land purchase

"Low Beckside will provide a spectacular landscape for us to nurture and grow our work in the north west."

www.lancs.live

you wouldnt like my comments

mismanaged, greedy directors, enough land to do more than what they was doing

 

[Miranda]

The fate of Newton Rigg Agricultural College has been up and down over the last 18 months or more... I thought they had settled it.

Wrong. By complete chance i was on bispotter today and discovered the entire clearance sale.

The College was probably one of the best in the world at one time. Loads of farming stuff was basically invented there. Most of it superceded these days. My late uncle was on a team of students who developed a chisel plough in the 70s. I think it's the very chisel plough in the sale, i recognise it from a photo. Some old farms around the country still have "Newton Rigg" cow cubicle designs. If you're a young farmer in Cumbria, chances are, you went to learn at least something from Newton Rigg. They had everything, even livestock at one point. The place was a small farm, essentially.

Loads of crap and junk and a few good tools, most of it meaning nothing to anyone really, except to the next generation of farmers who won't have this stuff to learn from. It will cost at least half a million to gear up another agricultural college to the same level, only it will be cheap chinese gear they buy instead and it won't last 5 minutes.

The auction company gets 20% of everything. The owners get to settle their mismanaged debts and write the rest of it off. I bet they sell the land for houses.

The house always wins

(i may still bid on a few things, of course... I can literally walk to the college from my house!)

Course it wasn’t the best…. National College of Agricultural Engineering at Silsoe was the best!!! Now razed to the ground for housing… the Agric Eng function has returned to Cranfield. It was always a Cranfield offsite campus.

I went to the reunion a few years ago just before the bulldozers moved in. A sad affair.

 

[Am333rcr]

sadly the same story at Auchinceuive in Ayr scotland where i studied agriculture and my girlfriend bio science.

 

[Blobber]

Course it wasn’t the best…. National College of Agricultural Engineering at Silsoe was the best!!! Now razed to the ground for housing… the Agric Eng function has returned to Cranfield. It was always a Cranfield offsite campus.

I went to the reunion a few years ago just before the bulldozers moved in. A sad affair.

Its ok though Silsoe is still full of tractors with all the new houses, shame they are of the chelsea variety....

 

[akdaka]

Newton Rigg used to have a great reputation for Forestry courses when I was younger, and contemplating a career in it. Ended up in Ag Engineering eventually. I think most of the land based colleges will or have been swallowed up by other colleges.

 

[Munkul]

Course it wasn’t the best…. National College of Agricultural Engineering at Silsoe was the best!!! Now razed to the ground for housing… the Agric Eng function has returned to Cranfield. It was always a Cranfield offsite campus.

I went to the reunion a few years ago just before the bulldozers moved in. A sad affair.

Thank you for the comment. I didn't say "the best" I said "one of the best"

This isn't about you

 

[Munkul]

Askham Bryan were using Newton Rigg as the dumping ground for their debts on paper, as part of their group management strategy. That's why it went under.

They have a lot to answer for. Yes I'm terse, it's a name that means quite a lot to people around here, myself included

 

[Tangledfeet]

Such a shame to see any educational establishment come to a sad demise.

 

[Bullet2012]

Never nice, wherever the place is located or the industry it supports. It must be even worse if you have a personal connection like the OP.

 

[Miranda]

Thank you for the comment. I didn't say "the best" I said "one of the best"

This isn't about you

In jest!

 

[Munkul]

In jest!

Sorry Miranda I took it a bit personally.

My dad and two uncles went there, and in the 80's they tried all sorts of fancy ideas on our own farm. At one point they had a fully automatic silage feeding system from silo to feed barriers, literally press the button and go. Of course it didn't work out in the long run- but I was always amazed that they had the capital and the vision to even try such a thing, it's still an elusive holy grail for farmers even today!

 

[Migmac]

What a shame, I know a good few folk who have been students there.

 

[frank horton]

I was offered a Job as a Bee Keeper at Rothampstead, Herts... research station.....
Bxxxx lab gov shut it down...."we dont need research on bee's n crops etc, etc"
thats just before all the bad Bee bugs got here....
Was told they were trying to reopen it again BUT all the best brains (for bees') were offered jobs in the same kinda place but in ARIZONA....
why would u stay here....sxxt hole.....
I wanted to visit the new place over there but life got in the way.....

Sorry to hear about the college.....it's a once in a lifetime.....

 

[ronan]

Its getting to the stage, where the lure of easy money for building land is killing a lot of businesses off. Around the dockland here in dublin, there was always places where you could get some work. But most of the factories are now gone to be replaced with hideous apartments. I would think its the same with this agricultural college, someone copped the fact they could make millions for doing nothing but selling the place. Short term gain, but in the long run the country is pooer for it.

 

[gaz1]

I kinda have an opinion here

if its not a working museum its drab and boring the place must earn its own keep as well as donations

it should not be there always with its hand out expecting donations

the area im in has a few museums

photography which you can use the machines and even have a play with them
saltaire mills which to be honest here was boring didnt find it interesting as a old school day in past times sat at a wood desk
only got to see a person flicking a bobin across the machine all the rest of the machines was sat there dead might as well get scrapped for that in my eyes
produced some materials but not via a big machine
halifax was the same @optima21 when i went there wasnt a working machine in there that produced anything and you never got to see it in working use

as goes for transport museum boring to hell all the machines stored under one roof even if they worked you never got to ride on them or even see there workings or see them running.
that place dosnt exist now 4 moves 2 in bad areas and one move that didnt have a local bus station or even a train station as it never got built until 6 years after its death

as goes for farm museums they should be copying the old tools and using them in there fields let people try old methods out and make the land produce not sat there doing nothing

as goes for the staff either pay the staff or use volunteers and that should be right up to the directors chair if there volunteers

if its classed as a charity then the place shouldnt have high paid elite staff theres plenty of the younger generation that would love to get a start on that sort of ladder same with the staff theres plenty of people out there

 

[JMS1972]

Err he was talking about a college not a museum.

 

[Mikey D]

Sorry Miranda I took it a bit personally.

My dad and two uncles went there, and in the 80's they tried all sorts of fancy ideas on our own farm. At one point they had a fully automatic silage feeding system from silo to feed barriers, literally press the button and go. Of course it didn't work out in the long run- but I was always amazed that they had the capital and the vision to even try such a thing, it's still an elusive holy grail for farmers even today!

I came across an automatic silage feeder system in the 80's, conveyor belt running the length of the shed with a rotating brush running up and down it and a sort of auger blower arrangement to unload the reco tower silo might of been the same system??

 

[Tinbasherdan]

I cannot understand for the life of me how an agricultural college cannot be profitable in Cumbria of all places. I nearly went there to do game keeping but life had different ideas