This is the second of three films taken by John Spencer while he was working at Wrathmire Farm.  The farm was run by the Chapman family, and the film shows life on the farm in Upper Littondale in the Yorkshire Dales.  This one includes a dry stone walling competition and sheep shearing. The film begins showing a puppy playing.  There are ewes and lambs being fed in a field.  The stream behind Halton Gill and Big Pasture at Foxup can be seen where a motorcycle trial is taking place.  Then two...

This is the second of three films taken by John Spencer while he was working at Wrathmire Farm.  The farm was run by the Chapman family, and the film shows life on the farm in Upper Littondale in the Yorkshire Dales.  This one includes a dry stone walling competition and sheep shearing. The film begins showing a puppy playing.  There are ewes and lambs being fed in a field.  The stream behind Halton Gill and Big Pasture at Foxup can be seen where a motorcycle trial is taking place.  Then two boys, one of them Tom Varley’s son, are playing near the old Stainforth packhorse bridge Stainforth Force.  They go over the stepping stones over Stainforth Beck. Next there is an outing to Gatehouse in Fleet, Scotland, for a competition of dry stone walling.  They stop on the way for Tom Varley to demonstrate the difference between Scottish and Yorkshire dry stone walls, with the former having more loose stones.  Several teams are competing from Yorkshire, who took all the prizes, with judges marking their work.  Mrs Murray Usher, the lady of the Manor, presented the prizes. Back at the farm, there are shots of labourers including Herbert Leyland having a beer and Don Cawood are raking in and collecting cut grass.  There are then a posse of men with guns out clay pigeon shooting just below Hardcastle one of them being Norman Robinson, with Joe Windle in the cap and Jim Gill feeding pheasants.  There are more sheep and lambs in the porch of Halton Gill Church.  A terrier pup, named Jill, is playing with a new-born lamb.  A sheep is being shorn by hand with shears by Bob Chapman, who holds up the fleece for the camera.  Finally, Masham lambs are brought in from the field.