Farming in Miniature is a research project, which has been running since 2007, to record and study all British-manufactured toy farm vehicles and implements, pulled by both horses and tractors, dating from the earliest examples made in the 1920s up to 1980.  By then most British companies had closed or had moved their production to the Far East.  We have included in the survey items made of wood, tinplate, soldered wire, Bakelite, lead, diecast alloys, cast aluminium, plastic, rubber and cut-out card.  Packaging for these models has been included wherever possible.  The result has been a detailed record of the products of a British industry which has all but disappeared.  The results are available in two printed volumes published by Old Pond in 2013 and 5M in 2014; see this page for details of how to buy the printed book.

The main authors are Robert Newson, Peter Wade-Martins and Adrian Little, supported by Brian Bastiman and Mervyn Spokes, and the project has involved taking thousands of photographs of many different collections.  We were never once refused access to a collection, and the support of many friends and enthusiasts has been encouraging.  With the publication of Volume 2 in 2014, collecting and research did not stop, and this new website illustrates new discoveries made since then.

Our policy has been to list items by the brand name under which they were originally marketed.  While these names usually represent the manufacturers, some (such as “Moko”) are the names of distributors, and others (such as "Matchbox") are brand names.

The purpose of this website is to list additional material referring back as far as possible to comparable examples in the books.  The Addenda items to Volume 1 (which were published in Volume 2) are also included here.  Three new manufacturers have been found: “Distinctive Toys”, who produced a wooden tractor; “Woodnote”, who produced a wooden horse-drawn gig for toddlers; and “Gaiety”, who produced a diecast tractor.  This brings the total number of manufacturers to about 72.

For the older generation, childhood memories are filled with recollections of carpet farming using these toys, and they do reflect a period in the development of real farming technology which has almost entirely disappeared.  We hope these books and this website will continue to re-kindle memories and will give pleasure to all generations old and new.

Click on the name of a manufacturer to go to the updates for that chapter.