Cow Sheds

Main Street, Ashby Magna in 2006

Mr Bevin: The cow shed?

Interviewer: Yes…

Mr Bevin: It was a poor old place. Wooden standings if you know what that means.

Interviewer: That’s sort of…

Mr Bevin: The divisions between each two cows. A brick part for the heels of the cow and a hollowed out mud place for the knees of the cow.

Interviewer: A brick place for their heels…

Mr Bevin: Heels, yes, standing, and the knee, the front part was sort of scooped out dried mud, made it easier for their knees when the cows were lying down. When these new hygienic regulations came in they wouldn’t allow anything like that. All the old brick had to be fetched up and concrete everywhere right up to the mangers, and the old wooden standings had to go out and be replaced either by tubular or concrete.

Interviewer: What about lighting?

Mr Bevin: Lighting, when the sun went down, dusk, all you’d got was the old hurricane lantern to go about the place, if the wind caught it, it went out.

Interviewer: They must have milked very early in the morning I presume?

Mr Bevin: You’d had to get a good start. Now in the summer when the cows were out and you’d got to go down the road to fetch the cows in before you could start, and then you’d got to milk and cool, and load the churns onto the cart or the float and take them to the station half a mile away to catch the train about eight o’clock, you see, you had to get up in the morning.

©EMOHA