Boxted bridge, built in the heyday of agricultural steam traction engines

This photograph taken on 1st May 1928 shows a 1922 steam plough engine made by John Fowler & Co (Leeds) Ltd weighing around 22 tonnes which could plough up to 30 acres a day, the engine driver is Arthur Cane from Chrishall. Steam ploughs would have been a familiar sight crossing Boxted bridge after the bridge was built in 1897 right up until when production ceased in the 1930's with continued preference for the petrol-paraffin tractor, which was less costly to operate.

Boxted bridge was built in the heyday of agricultural general purpose traction engines, the forerunner of today's tractor. A standard form of traction engine had evolved by the 1870s which would change little over the next sixty years which was widely adopted and used in agriculture for general farm duties.  Ploughing engines, the largest of the steam traction engines, were used in pairs, placed either side of a field to haul a plow back and forth between them using a wire cable, turned by a horizontal cable drum under the boiler, and these were in use well into the 20th century until reliable internal combustion engines had been developed. Though not usually owned by the farmers themselves, contractors operated them, touring from farm to farm.

Photo credit: Chrishall Village History website, The life and times of a North Essex Village, 'Traction Engines, Arthur Cane'.