NORTON PLOUGHING MATCH

Norton Show has not run since 2016. Falling attendances meant it was no longer feasible to keep it going. We still run an annual ploughing match.

We thought you might be  interested in the history of the show.

The Norton Show and Ploughing  Association was founded in the early 1880's and it was run by quite a large  committee, made up of members of the general public and a very large number of  farmers, with almost every farm in the area being represented.

The meetings were held behind the  Bagshawe Arms in an upper room which was also used as a court room for the  local assizes. The show was held in Oakes Park, by kind permission of the  Bagshawe Family on the first Monday in August, which in those days was Bank Holiday Monday. It was a typical agricultural show, with classes for cattle,  shire horses, show jumping, pigs, poultry, pigeons, rabbits, horticulture,  baking and handicrafts. There were also sheepdog trials, children's gymkhana  and musical events as well as a parade of the Barlow Fox Hounds.   ttendances started to fall by the  late 1950's with people travelling further afield on a Bank Holiday Monday, and  so, as the crowds got smaller, and with the increasing cost of running such a  big event 1959 saw the last of the ""Old Norton Show". However, a  nucleus of the committee stayed together to keep on running the ploughing match  which took place annually, as it still does today, on the third Saturday in  October, although without  the income from the show, this became more and more difficult and so it was  decided to help raise funds by restoring the show in a very small way ten years  after the old show had closed. This proved a success and over  the last, almost 50 years, the show has steadily grown, last year's show being  our most successful in recent years - even being covered by a live broadcast  from Radio Sheffield.

Peter Haddock, Chairman.