The Rolling Experience day

with "Gertrude Lucy"

New for 2022, we are offering a steam rolling experience which will see you driving and operating a lovely 8 ton Wallis and Steevens Oilbath steam roller built in 1922.

You will help maintain farm tracks and repair potholes off the public highway. This will prepare you for operating the engine on the road for a trip out for lunch at a local hostelry and a meander along some country roads before returning to the farm in the late afternoon. The engine is a little easier to handle than the bigger Garrett Traction and very responsive. This experience may suit someone with no engine driving experience, particularly given that more time is available to practise on the farm, slowly going back and forth over the tracks doing what the engine was designed to do a hundred years ago. No shovelings of gravel is expected by guests in the road making experience!

The day will consist of a health and safety briefing followed by lighting the fire and cleaning the engine before eating a cooked breakfast for you and any family members, prepared and eaten in the traditional living van alongside the engine. After breakfast you will continue to prepare the engine by raising steam and oiling up, all under the friendly guidance of the team looking after you. Once in steam, which takes about an hour or so from lighting the fire, you will be given simple instructions on how to operate the engine and you will be carefully monitored by us on the footplate at every stage of the day. As soon as you are competent to do so, we will “roll in” pre-prepared mounds of gravel to maintain the tracks around the farm where the engine lives. This will give you a feel for both driving and steering the engine, usually undertaken by two people and the opportunity to try both parts of the operation of the engine at a nice slow pace with a partner and away from road traffic.

As lunchtime approaches, we will hook up the trailer and head for a very pleasant local pub a couple of miles away from the farm. This will give you the opportunity to put into practice your newly acquired driving and steering skills on the open road. Members of the family can ride on the trailer at no additional cost and also enjoy a meal if they so wish.

After lunch we will make our way back to the farm via a country route and arrive back in time for tea and biscuits before putting the engine to bed.

A flat cap and badge will be provided for each driver as a memento of their experience.