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Milltown Farms, 1965 to date (The SPN Collection)


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The collection supposes a family business coming from a farming & milling heritage and branching out into other related areas down through the decades

The story begins in 1965 when a Trust is formed to create an equitable and efficient business model for the ownership and management of the family assets among the four brothers and three sisters.

We begin with the story of the machinery fleet at Milltown House down through the decades

The eldest sister and her husband manage the tillage, dairy farming and horticulture enterprise at Milltown House.

 

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The prime mover on the farm in 1965 is a mid 1950s Deutz F4L 514

This tractor does a lot of road haulage, pulling milk churns to the Co-Op every day, grain to the mill, and sugar beet to the factory in deepest winter. It also does some ploughing and cultivations, and powers a grain mill and other legacy belt driven machinery.

 

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The second line tractor in 1965 is a 1963 David Brown 990 Implematic. It is a great allrounder with cutting edge hydraulics and takes on cultivations, mowing/tedding/baling, powering the silage harvester and potato harvester, and is back up on carting duties.

 

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The farm runs a 1964 County Super Major Hi-Drive for high clearance work in the horticulture unit, including spraying, hoeing, ridging, harvesting. It is also equipped with a belt pulley and does duty on the grain mill in winter

 

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The loader tractor is a 1962 Fendt Farmer 2, which replaced a Ferguson TEA in that role. Materials handling is a key role on the farm and the benefits of a hydraulic front loader system was realised very early on.

 

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In 1968 the tractor fleet got refreshed. Haulage work is now being done by a fleet of Ford D series working from Newpark Farm, so a decision was taken to go with 4 wheel drive on the main tractor, and to have this take on the loader role as well. 4wd will be very uselful loading dungspreaders and the sugar beet cleaner loader in the field.

The Roadless Ploughmaster 65 was considered but the Deutz D6005 was chosen in the end.

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The Fendt Farmer 2 was replaced with a Fendt GT231 Toolcarrier. This machine offers an innovative approach to many operations in the horticulture unit with its mid mounted linkage for hoeing and precision cultivation. It is also extremely useful for harvesting operations in the vegetable beds.

 

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1976 and the Fendt GT is replaced with a Deitz Intrac 2003A. The Deutz has a more powerful engine and 4wd which gives a big increase in output. The Deutz D6005 is replaced with a Fendt 106S.

The tractor line up at the end of 1976

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I jumped into the De Lorean and nipped back to 1978 to get this pic of the six new Q cabs lined up in the yard at Newpark Farm

L-R County 762H for Milltown House, 2x 6600 for Newpark Farm, 7600, 7600-FOUR and 1174 for the contracting operation

Also a quick pic of the tractors on the Milltown Farms contracting fleet in 1978

 

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In the mid 1970s the company began renting 500 acres at nearby Abbeylands Estate. In 1980 the property was purchased outright.

In 1983 the Claas Senator at Milltown was replaced with a Dominator 96 to increase harvesting capacity across the company.

The deal included the purchase of a DB1490 Hydrashift to replace the Ford 5000 at Milltown. The semi-powershift gearbox was seen as offering a number of benefits across a range of tasks, from trailer work to vegetable harvesting operations.

 

 

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Machinery at Milltown House had historically been matched to tractors in the 60-80hp range. From 1985 the decision was taken to spec new machinery for tractors in the 80-100hp range. The first tractor purchased as part of this new policy is a Fendt Farmer 309LSA. The turbomatic transmission is a big selling point for this tractor.

Also purchased in 1985 is a MF50D for materials handling, building and maintenance work.

 

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