Explore gardening history at Horsham Museum

The sun is shining (sometimes!) and it’s starting to get warmer – that means one thing! For those people who have a lawn it’s time to get the mower out.

While most of us simply plug our lawnmower into the mains and let the machine do all the hard work, it wasn’t that long ago that it was a much tougher job!

Horsham Museum & Art Gallery has some great examples of mowers (in the Barn) and rollers (in the garden) going back many years, showing just how much energy was needed to keep the grass looking good.

The first mower was invented and patented in 1830 by Edwin Budding in Gloucestershire.

Before that the work was all done with a scythe and had to be started in the morning when the grass was wet.

One of the early manufacturers of mowers was Thomas Green who improved the original Budding design. Horsham Museum has a great example of a eight inch bladed Thomas Green Multum in Parvo (meaning ‘with little, much’) model.

The Museum also has a Ransomes Edge Trimmer, from the early 20th Century, with its impressive looking gearing!

Coming more up to date is the Qualcast ‘Panther’. This was one of the most popular and successful mowers ever made, selling more than a million. It was on sale from 1932 until the late 1950s and was one of the first mass produced mowers using more modern materials, such as ball bearings and steel.

Horsham Museum also has two lawn rollers on show. Lawn, or garden, rollers were, and still are, used to flatten the ground, remove worm casts and help ensure grass seed is embedded in the soil.

Before the advent of mowers they also helped with grass cutting. They would ensure the blades of grass were facing in one direction, making it easier to scythe.