sad to see this

[highseas]

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

Could not agree more! Newtonrigg is responsible to the best years of my life, I think I am lucky as I was part of last year to use the old Newton rigg and its lecturers, who are still good freinds today! I have been keeping a eye out for the sale coming up if you have a link please. And like you say that collage means a awful lot to a lot of folk

 

[premmington]

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 Most of it superceded these days.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!)

I have thought about your comment...

"The house always wins "

There is so much wisdom - in your quote!




It is a good way of explaining the current economic climate!

Munkal - I declare you publically - not an idiot!

 

[ronan]

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

"People make plans and god laughs". One of the best theories on life i ever heard.

Different ball game making a few hundred thousand a year profits running an agricultural college, and making many millions just selling the place off.

 

[Tinbasherdan]

"People make plans and god laughs". One of the best theories on life i ever heard.

Different ball game making a few hundred thousand a year profits running an agricultural college, and making many millions just selling the place off.

I’ll bet the profits were more than a couple hundred k

 

[Munkul]

I dunno, it wasnt charging the earth for its courses, otherwise no one would have went... You know how tight farmers are!
But at the same time it could have been as profitable as any tech college if ran right. Not hundreds of thousands profit, but enough to reinvest in the good years.
One of the guys was saying tonight they invested way too much in unprofitable areas, eg revamping a milking parlour to some high spec, also he said they had the nicest sheep barns he'd ever seen lol
Then again, that's supposed to be the modern standard so... Should have been budgeted for regardless...

 

[Munkul]

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??

Yes it was a reco silo and sounds like probably the same system!
The silo itself was the main problem. The grass was never dry enough and the cutters in the base for extracting it were basically old coal mining chain cutters. Not an optimal design for grass silage at all. Dad said it was always the same - Christmas day? Guaranteed the silage would drop and jam the cutter, or the chain would snap.
Maybe would have worked better with maize or wholecrop silage that flows a bit better.

 

[Rudi McAnichal]

…. National College of Agricultural Engineering at Silsoe ..... It was always a Cranfield offsite campus.

Not in my day - NCAE was a stand-alone college until the early 1970s (sometimes described as a mono-technic, back in the days before the polytechnics were turned into universities).

Extract from Peter Payne’s obituary: "..... a Government directive that all National Colleges should cease to be independent and join with another larger institution. In conjunction with the Governing Body, various discussions took place with a number of Universities, to identify the most appropriate one for the College to become part. The final decision was that NCAE should become a Faculty of Cranfield Institute of Technology (latterly Cranfield University). The Faculty title chosen, namely, the Faculty of Agricultural Engineering, Food Production and Rural Land Use, indicates how the NCAE had and was developing under his leadership. This transfer to Cranfield took place in 1975 ....."

Very sad to hear about the closure of Newton Rigg.

 

[Miranda]

Not in my day - NCAE was a stand-alone college until the early 1970s (sometimes described as a mono-technic, back in the days before the polytechnics were turned into universities).

Extract from Peter Payne’s obituary: "..... a Government directive that all National Colleges should cease to be independent and join with another larger institution. In conjunction with the Governing Body, various discussions took place with a number of Universities, to identify the most appropriate one for the College to become part. The final decision was that NCAE should become a Faculty of Cranfield Institute of Technology (latterly Cranfield University). The Faculty title chosen, namely, the Faculty of Agricultural Engineering, Food Production and Rural Land Use, indicates how the NCAE had and was developing under his leadership. This transfer to Cranfield took place in 1975 ....."

Very sad to hear about the closure of Newton Rigg.

I was there in 76 - 79.

 

[gaz1]

to now

Not in my day - NCAE was a stand-alone college until the early 1970s (sometimes described as a mono-technic, back in the days before the polytechnics were turned into universities).

Extract from Peter Payne’s obituary: "..... a Government directive that all National Colleges should cease to be independent and join with another larger institution. In conjunction with the Governing Body, various discussions took place with a number of Universities, to identify the most appropriate one for the College to become part.

dont give me that crap if instead it wasnt begging for funding all the time and wanting this that and the other in donations like it was doing in the first place

instead of that they just sat on it and its land itstead of making it profitable so it funds itself always the same with these colleges and its always everyone elses fault but there own

enjoy your read

MPs' inquiry into Newton Rigg and land-based education - cumbriacrack.com

MPs grilled the bosses of Newton Rigg this afternoon as the Environment, Food and Rural and Affairs Select Committee investigates land-based education. The 11-strong cross-party select committee, which includes Penrith and the Border MP Neil Hudson, will be hearing from the following witnesses...

cumbriacrack.com

 

[Rudi McAnichal]

I was there in 76 - 79.

I am one of the geriatrics who was there 66-69.

dont give me that crap if instead it wasnt begging for funding all the time and wanting this that and the other in donations like it was doing in the first place

instead of that they just sat on it and its land itstead of making it profitable so it funds itself always the same with these colleges and its always everyone elses fault but there own

Who's talking crap? You have responded to my post about NCAE Silsoe, which never had any land other than a couple of small and rather wet fields at Flitton (and I am not even certain whether they were owned or rented). Are you saying that it should be possible to fund a college of 200 students from 20 acres of land? It sounds to me as though you would probably require an annual profit of around £100k per acre (roughly equivalent to generating £10k per annum from the average suburban garden), which might be rather difficult to achieve.

Are you perhaps confusing NCAE with Newton Rigg?

 

[Miranda]

This post was about the sadness of well known colleges closing ….. the reasons are irrelevant.

 

[Munkul]

enjoy your read

MPs' inquiry into Newton Rigg and land-based education - cumbriacrack.com

MPs grilled the bosses of Newton Rigg this afternoon as the Environment, Food and Rural and Affairs Select Committee investigates land-based education. The 11-strong cross-party select committee, which includes Penrith and the Border MP Neil Hudson, will be hearing from the following witnesses...

cumbriacrack.com

From the horses mouth... If you can get past the political BS and question dodging, and read between the lines.
How you can't make a course profitable at £5300 a year at 100 people/year I don't know, tech colleges manage to deliver the goods for engineering apprentices for a similar amount. I smell the strong smell of bull poo.
Then again there is maybe extra funding for apprentices I'm not aware of.

 

[gaz1]

you say a coarse i say many coarses that could have been done on that land site

it was a poor business model and wanted to keep it that way yet wanted hand outs from the college to feed it

if the illustrated videos of a farm can produce a profit on the land that was provided then other places can do so

joinery coarses could have been held there
bricklaying coarses
soil sampler testers coarses
fertalizer / sewer drainage coarses
bio degradable coarses

and plenty more other coarses could have been held there

personally id think @Miranda would love college payment handouts just to show how to farm and maintain there land with 100 staff all paid for

 

[gaz1]

Are you perhaps confusing NCAE with Newton Rigg?

was replying about newton

though i do think many farm coarses are too restrictive when theres other coarses for a farm that can be done even on many farm colleges

 

[Morrisman]

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.

Same in my town, we had the huge GEC Main Works, later called Alstom, that built mahoosive generators that were shipped all over the world. Famous place, employed many hundreds of people.

Several of my friends served apprenticeships there, some worked for decades.

Now it’s gone, razed to the ground.... and planning app for 350 houses is up for comments.

I recieved a letter about it this morning, despite me living four miles away.

 

[Newlands]

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.

You’re absolutely right - a fantastic college that I appreciated when I was there and yet still to this day think that I didn’t appreciate it enough. I left in the year that it became an offshoot of Cranfield. Apparently there were several National Colleges, two of them being Silsoe (agricultural engineering) and Cranfield (aeronautics). Set up after the war when it was realised that the government had to invest in particularly important areas of engineering that were sorely neglected before the war.
When were you there?
Edit - I see you’ve already answered that.
I was there 73-77, so I saw the first year of it being a satellite of Cranfield - not much changed in that year, but it certainly did subsequently. I was there at the time that Peter Payne, the Principal that @Rudi McAnichal referred to, retired to his hobby farm in Cornwall. He was a top bloke - big bushy lamb chop sideburns and he really loved his job. We held a student Union leaving dinner for him - his leaving present was a pitchfork that we bought locally and got silver plated - presented by two of us dressed up in old shepherds smocks and with a couple of lambs in halters that we borrowed from next door Mander College farm that we somehow managed to persuade to walk with us into the posh dining room with its polished parquet flooring. Those were the days! He initially thought we were going to present him with the lambs as well as the pitchfork!
And now it’s a poxy housing estate, and the workshops and machinery (including a collection of vintage machines belonging to the Student Union) are long gone. Sadly many of the agricultural and ag engineering colleges have disappeared, including Rycotewood in Thame Oxon which I went to before Silsoe.

 

[blackolive (Ste)]

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

Poor management. The one near us going downhill rapidly due to people nowadays not knowing their backside from their elbow

 

[julianthegypsy]

You’re absolutely right - a fantastic college that I appreciated when I was there and yet still to this day think that I didn’t appreciate it enough. I left in the year that it became an offshoot of Cranfield. Apparently there were several National Colleges, two of them being Silsoe (agricultural engineering) and Cranfield (aeronautics). Set up after the war when it was realised that the government had to invest in particularly important areas of engineering that were sorely neglected before the war.
When were you there?
Edit - I see you’ve already answered that.
I was there 73-77, so I saw the first year of it being a satellite of Cranfield - not much changed in that year, but it certainly did subsequently. I was there at the time that Peter Payne, the Principal that @Rudi McAnichal referred to, retired to his hobby farm in Cornwall. He was a top bloke - big bushy lamb chop sideburns and he really loved his job. We held a student Union leaving dinner for him - his leaving present was a pitchfork that we bought locally and got silver plated - presented by two of us dressed up in old shepherds smocks and with a couple of lambs in halters that we borrowed from next door Mander College farm that we somehow managed to persuade to walk with us into the posh dining room with its polished parquet flooring. Those were the days! He initially thought we were going to present him with the lambs as well as the pitchfork!
And now it’s a poxy housing estate, and the workshops and machinery (including a collection of vintage machines belonging to the Student Union) are long gone. Sadly many of the agricultural and ag engineering colleges have disappeared, including Rycotewood in Thame Oxon which I went to before Silsoe.

I was at Rycotewood from 77 to 79. Fantastic place that I still remember fondly. I was gutted to see it's now posh apartments, and the newer buildings have been demolished, including the JC Turner memorial wing, which can't have been more than 20 years old, as well as two excellent blocks of student accomodations, and of course the workshops. Oh those workshops...

 

[Miranda]

I was at Rycotewood from 77 to 79. Fantastic place that I still remember fondly. I was gutted to see it's now posh apartments, and the newer buildings have been demolished, including the JC Turner memorial wing, which can't have been more than 20 years old, as well as two excellent blocks of student accomodations, and of course the workshops. Oh those workshops...

You would know a friend of mine from Cornwall who was there same years as you and possibly we have met too as He and I used to spend weekends regularly at either Rycotewood or Silsoe. Swapped an engine in his Escort van .. two hours from driving into those workshops to out again.

Phillip Langdon……. I went through school with him as a friend, he lives about ten miles from me now and we still get together regularly.

He went on to Silsoe in 79.

 

[julianthegypsy]

You would know a friend of mine from Cornwall who was there same years as you and possibly we have met too as He and I used to spend weekends regularly at either Rycotewood or Silsoe. Swapped an engine in his Escort van .. two hours from driving into those workshops to out again.

Phillip Langdon……. I went through school with him as a friend, he lives about ten miles from me now and we still get together regularly.

He went on to Silsoe in 79.

Good God! I do indeed remember Phil Langdon. He had a beautiful Volvo, a la The Saint! Say hello to him for me, there weren't any other Julians at the time!