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Show Background...

The show will be held as usual on the showground off Bochum Parkway on Saturday 11th August.

We thought you might be interested to learn something of its history.

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.

Attendances 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 (we will be hosting our 116th competition this year), 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.