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- The Show -
Wherever there is farming you will find a farmers’ show – a busman’s holiday for those who earn their living from the land to justify a few days off by telling themselves they’re really at work.
The Lincolnshire Show, staged annually in June on its own showground at Grange-de-Lings, north of Lincoln, has been a welcome diversion for the regions farmers for two centuries. The First Lincolnshire Agricultural Society was formed in 1796, but it was not until 1799 that some of its members first got around to showing off their livestock and competing for prizes.
That competitive spirit still lies at the heart of the modern Lincolnshire Show, though some of the judging criteria have altered somewhat since that first event 200 years ago. Instead of offering a prize for the labourer in husbandry who has brought up the most numerous family without parochial assistance’, the judges are nowadays more concerned with the quality of the pedigree sheep, pigs, cattle, and horses which are paraded around the show ring.
When Lincolnshire farmers first started putting their handiwork on display, the sheep and the pig were the county’s staples. Today the growing of crops has pushed livestock farming into second place, but some of the old style Lincolnshire breeds still survive to be admired on show day. Lincolnshire Longwool sheep and Lincoln red cattle have both increased in number after a period of decline, although breeds such as the Lincolnshire Curlycoat pig will, sadly never be seen again.
Livestock judging is not the only attraction at the Lincolnshire show, of course – around 80,000 people visit the event over two days, and only a fraction of those are farmers. To keep them amused the Lincolnshire Agricultural Society lays on all manner of entertainment, from trade exhibits, crafts and conservation displays to show jumping, parachuting, falconry, and sheepdog trials. It may no longer be the farmers’ day out that it once was, but today the Lincolnshire Show is undoubtedly the county’s most significant annual event.
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