THE rural craft of ploughing was revived at the weekend.

Competitors travelled from across the region and the Scottish Borders to take part in the annual Beamish Ploughing Match.

Visitors to Beamish Museum, near Stanley, County Durham, were able to watch teams of heavy horses being steered by expert ploughmen and women.

Judges were looking not only at how well the horse team was managed, but also at the quality of the ploughing, with particular attention being given to the opening and finishing of the plots.

Following several hours of intensive competition, the museum's stockman, Jim Elliott, emerged triumphant in the High Cut class, beating rival Peter Brassett, the museum horseman.

Alan Lees, of Thirsk, North Yorkshire, won the General Purpose category, while fellow Yorkshiremen David Hesketh and Richard Iveson won the Decorated Heavy Horse section.

All competitors received a commemorative horse brass and a personalised copy of a ploughing competition certificate dating from the early-1900s.

Prior to judging, visitors were also able to watch the Clydesdale and shire horses being prepared and dressed with colourful ribbons, traditional decorations and leather harnesses.

Items of horse-drawn farm machinery exhibited included a hay turner, seed drill and chain harrow.

There were also working demonstrations of a steam engine and thresher dating from the early-1900s, and displays of harness-making, and plough handle-making using a traditional pole lathe.