Rust on!

I went walking in the woods around an old country mansion, now a hotel. As with all such places the land would have been farmed by the tenants and labourers under instructions from the landowner, who in the heyday of the estate, would have made sure that the animals, the buildings and the agricultural machinery  reflected the status of the family.
The fine old stone barns and byres are tumbledown now, homes to bats and owls and collections of rubbish but outside the once finely-appointed stables, are these two ancient mowers. The maker's mark on the left hand one is Ruston & Hornsby.  This long-established engineering firm based in Lincoln made not only farm machinery but, in WW1, was one of the largest producers of aircraft engines as well as guns, ammunition and engines for tanks and submarines. 

"The first German Zeppelin to be shot down on British soil was done so by a Ruston-built BE2 fighter. The pilot, Lt Leefe Robinson was awarded the Victoria Cross for this deed.'
More about that here if you're interested. Ironically the firm was eventually bought out by the German firm of Siemens.

Anyway, here lie these two innocent old mowers dating I should think from the 1930s if not before. Like all such machines they could be kept going almost indefinitely with a little attention from the local blacksmith if replacement parts were needed and even now, with TLC they could no doubt be brought back into use. I was charmed to find a YouTube video of a very similar mower purchased in 1919 by a farmer in Northern Ireland, and now brought back into working order in Canada. It's worth having a quick look (skip the beginniing) because there is something rather  touching about the family who now own it and the horses too, much like the ones who would have lived comfortable if hard-working lives in the immense stables that can be seen in my extra images: not only beautifully fitted out with wood but also, it seems, nicely painted in blue and red. The horses would have needed a comfortable night's sleep before and after pulling these heavy machines.