The Giant Gyro-tiller.

Team horses of Clydesdale’s, Belgium and other shire breeds had for centuries carried out the cultivating of arable land in the Thames Valley. The normal single furrow horse plough had been the basic cultivating implement for years. Farmers began to realize that their arable land was not draining, as it should due the build up of what became known as a clay hardpan. The plough manufacturers came up with a single arrowhead cultivator tine that would break up the bottom of the furrow before being covered by the newly turned sod. This worked well except that due to the extra heavy drag on the plough the horse team could not complete as much work in one day as before.
To the rescue came the agricultural engineers with the diesel powered “Gyro tiller.” This very expensive machine could be hired from an Agricultural Contractor. The machine became so popular among the farmers that the machine was working twenty-four hours a day with its own flood light system. It could break up hardpan down to eighteen to twenty inches.
During the war this machine was used to break up areas of the Thicket in Pinkneys Green for one place as more ground under the plough. Then after the war more tractors came on the market with two and three furrow ploughs with sub-soiler attachments and the Gyro-tiller became redundant. So did ploughing with horses for that matter.