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Among other things, this is a really nice illustration of the changes in post-war farming. How so? Then read on. 
https://twitter.com/LBFlyawayhome/status/1356322516030119938
https://twitter.com/LBFlyawayhome/status/1356322516030119938
The most obvious thing are the tractors, shown here hauling disc harrows, but as @LivingwMachines might note, there are other signs of mechanisation 2/n
The pen of square bales - demonstrating the presence of a baler - is another sign of rural mechanisation and changes in farming. The breed of sheep is probably another, but that's the kind of thing @herdyshepherd1 or @TheMERL know about. 3/n
4You can also see signs of modernisation in the farm buildings. The green wiggly tin building is probably a grain silo - this is a 'mixed' farm, combining arable (crops) and livestock - sheep and cattle - & the 'Dutch' barn replaces the hayrick and is handy for penned stock. 4/n
The brick building with the vents on the roof is presumably a - purpose-built - dairy. It's doubtful that any of these structures would have been present before the Second World War. 5/n
And mention of the dairy brings us to the cows, which are unmistakeably Holstein Freisians. What most urban people think of as the 'classic' dairy cow is no such thing: it's another post-war introduction, replacing 'native' breeds like the dairy shorthorn. 6/n
You can see this transition in this wonderful film of the Melplash Show (Dorset) from 1957 7/n:
And the reason was to drive up milk yields and generally add to the impression of efficiency and development (that would eventually encourage specialisation and the decline of small mixed farms like this). 8/n
But these modernising intents weren't new then - take a look at the machine shed: seed drills, binders (that cut and bound stalks of grain into bunches or stooks) could and were developed for horse power. Are these machines stored or dumped, obsolete? 9/n
And speaking of horses. Their use survived alongside tractors into the '40s and '50s. You can see them in the MAF farm survey of 1941 (and the oats that fed them show up in land use stats) or here in this film from Purbeck 10/n
And here the @ladybirdbooks artist has captured a couple, I think redistributing a manure heap. The cart, by the way is a 'tip-cart', often home built except possibly for the wheels. Here's one conserved @Beamish_Museum. 11/n
Spot the difference? Pneumatic tyres (probably from a scrapped pre-war car) and the shafts replaced with a towbar for use with a tractor. Because a tractor can pull more than a pony the farmer has added 'greedy boards' to get the capacity up 12/n
So alongside the new investment, new techniques, new tools and new livestock, what's there to see is some make-do-and-mend (and no brand new combine harvester). And talking of which... 13/n
This is a pre-combine landscape: there's no sign of hedges being ripped out or gates widened to make room for big machines. The patchwork of small fields - as @DrSueOosthuizen can tell you - is a likely sign of piecemeal enclosure, of large fields bartered, bought and sold. 14/n
And that would have happened long before - the house glimpsed behind the barns hints that it might be in the 17th or early 18th centuries - but the imprint can be seen here. Those hedges are being maintained, the nearest is freshly laid (or pleached) 15/n:
Looking again that might actually be a 'dead' hedge, made from poles and brush trimmed from the living ones, which are themselves full of hedgerow trees which themselves are there for a purpose: timber trees had a value: on a rented farm they were reserved to the landlord. 16/n
I'm certain there's more and I might come back to this, but I should at this point, thank @LBFlyawayhome for sharing the image, #RolandLampitt for his keen eye and mum (a farm manager's daughter) and dad (brought up on the edge of a town) for explaining all this. 17/n Cuppa time!
Ok, firstly, thank you for all the likes, replies and retweets, you're all very kind. Thank you, too, to @DrSueOosthuizen who made me look again at my suggestion of the origin of the farm. 18/n https://twitter.com/DrAdamChapman/status/1356520842247700482?s=20
So @DrSueOosthuizen suggested I should think again about this, and that's right, because we're all trying to collaborate as best we can, that's when Twitter and history is best. So what we are probably looking at is an Enclosure-era farm. 19/n
Why Enclosure? The first thing is the straightness of the boundaries, characteristic of a surveyed landscape and formal agreements driven by Acts of parliament. Second is the neatness of the farmstead - barn and stables around a yard, separate from the house. 20/n
That's quite a 'modern' idea about the arrangement of space (note the orchard on the other side of the house, easier on the eye and also a scene of domestic labour). But also look at the field directly in front of the house. 21/n
The clearest explanation is that this represents a lost boundary, the headland where the plough turned between two fields, but now ploughed through and that's most likely to have occurred at Enclosure, probably in the 18th century. 22/n
The 'squareness' of the farm buildings supports that, too. I'll stop there, though there's much more that could be said (about trees, people, chickens, the thatched hayrick on the extreme left and more). Thanks again for following this ramble, there will be more. 23/fin.
