Today is Plough Monday, traditionally marking the beginning of the English agricultural year, as farming resumed after Christmas.

It was a day of giving thanks for farming and tools. Ploughs, for instance, would be blessed by priests and then paraded through town by ploughboys.

which is exactly what we want to be when we grow up

This lovely plough, a Kentish turn-wrest, was built to brave the soils of Kent and East Anglia. With two large wheels, agricultural writers William Marshall and Arthur Young call it 'the most unwieldly of all ploughs', which unfairly overlooks its vibrant personality.

(object number MERL 55/786)

we have lots more ploughs to share with you but we also have a meeting that started eight minutes ago. we will be back very shortly with even more ploughs to bless

if you're looking to really up the ante on your Plough Monday celebrations, you can't go wrong with [squints at notes] sending in the longsword dancers

next up on our list of very good ploughs worth blessing: the Suffolk iron plough. according to Marshall and Young, writing in the 19th century, the iron plough was 'entirely made of iron', which checks out. it had only handle, and a reputation for leaving its friends on read

if someone were audacious enough to attach a shell, let the record show that it would look very much like a large iron snail

(MERL 55/340)

if ploughs had twitter then the most popular plough would undoubtedly be the Rotherham plough. it's the 'most influential plough', posit Marshall and Young, citing its gamechanging legacy that shaped ploughs' development for years to come

(MERL 62/352)

we are eternally grateful for Rotherham plough's long-service both to cultivating the land and to clout

what if the real Loch Ness Monster was the fields we ploughed along the way https://twitter.com/sunglassescats/status/1348621292740743168

do you ever wake up feeling like the only thing that will get you out of bed is, uh, being pulled by 'up to six horses'? well today you're in good company, with the magnificent Gloucestershire long plough. 'heavy and inefficient,' Marshall and Young add, a little meanly

My Longest Gloucestershire Plough Ever

(MERL 54/91)