On a very foggy evening of the 11th of October, 68 members and friends of the Cornish Tractor Club met at Teagles Machinery Works at Blackwater for an excellent tour of the factory.
We were met by the Managing Director, Mr Fred Teagle together with Geoff Osborne the director of UK Sales and Philip Dymond, who took the members around the factory in groups.

We were given a demonstration in the drawing office by Duncan Wilson of the way machinery is drawn and developed with the use of computer software. We saw a presentation of the very beginnings of the whole factory manufacturing, with the various machines and how they developed. We learned that it was started in the early 1930's by Tom Teagle, a 19 year old who was left to run the family farm at Blackwater as his family had moved to the St Columb area where his father had bought another farm. He made potato planters which were used during the wartime and went on to manufacture loaders, broadcasters, seed drills, bale elevators and hedge trimmers amongst other things.
The main machines being made now are the Bale shredders, broadcasters and Toppers and they have now branched out into ground care machines. We were told the machines are being sent all over the world with the latest country to export to being Russia.

We then went on to see the plasma cutters cutting out the various parts we had already seen being designed in the design office. We saw the paint shop and completed machines and also the lathes working making various components, pins, bolts, bushes, PTO splines etc.

The evening concluded with tea and coffee and a collection was made for Cornwall Hospice Care which raised a marvellous £102.70.

Thanks to Kathryn for the pictures and narration.

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