IT WILL be horse-drawn heaven for collectors at Milton on Saturday, when a range of antique farming implements are to be offered by local livestock carrier Fred Brook, and his brother Ian, at a family clearing sale which features a range of collectable items.
The sale will clear machinery and plant used to operate “Willow Bank” the Brook family property bought by Fred and Ian’s grandfather Bill Brook, who lived and worked in the Milton district his entire life, first share farming locally before buying “Willow Bank”, in the first half of last century.
Bill operated the dairy property assisted by his sons John and Roy, who carried on the property after Bill’s death in 1975.
Roy worked on “Willow Bank” for about 50 years up until his death in the early 1990s, with his nephews Fred and Ian assisting him in the later years, before finally taking over the property’s management.
Fred Brook said much of the horse-drawn gear listed for the clearing sale was owned by Roy whose hobbies included breeding Draught horses and collecting horse-drawn gear.
Mr Brook said Roy travelled widely to collect much of his gear, some of which he found as far away as Cowra.
“Roy’s horses included two old mares he bought at Goulburn from which he bred younger animals for pulling his antique machinery, which he loved to restore,” he said.
The gear includes a horse-drawn super spreader, which features a handmade fertiliser box, alongside a horse-drawn sickle mower, five-tyne scarifer plus two seed boxes, combine, straight-14 disc plough, two-furrow mouldboard plough, reaper and binder, corn scuffler and sulky.
“Some of Roy’s gear was used on the property early on, but most of it was just collected as part of Roy’s hobby,” Mr Brook said.
The horse-drawn stick rake – which Mr Brook’s father also used as a hay rake – can be pulled by a tractor and features steel tynes.
Mr Brook is unsure how old the unit is, but thought it would be at least 50 years old.
“It has the old steel seat which was common on older gear and the horses were hooked to a central drawbar,” he said.
All of Roy’s gear was in working order prior to his death and since then has been stored in sheds on “Willow Bank”.
“Much of the gear could still be got working with little effort – just a bit of a grease and oil in most cases,” Mr Brook said.
“The horse-drawn reaper and binder perhaps is the main piece needing a bit more work, but the stick rake is of simple design and likely to still work with little effort.”
Mr Brook said since the scrap metal boom of the mid-2000s it had been harder to find antique machinery.
“It’s something we don’t see a lot of around here because many people sold what they had to scrap merchants,” he said.
“As a result, we’ve had quite a lot of interest in the sale.”
Mr Brook and his son Chris, will be buying “Willow Bank” from the family and plan to continue to run it as the small beef operation it remains today.
Contact A.J.Campbell and Son, Nowra, (02) 4421 7266.
