turnwrest

A turnwrest plough is a single-sided plough fitted with a moldboard that can be reversed or swung to either side of the beam, allowing the operator to work across sloping ground without walking in the furrow. The moldboard rotates on a horizontal axis as the plough reaches the end of a strip, turning the soil to the left on the return pass instead of requiring the ploughman to return to the start and begin again. This design made it possible to plough on hillsides where conventional symmetrical ploughs would leave dead furrows and create uneven terrain.

The turning mechanism involved a lever or wooden arm that the ploughman would manually operate at the end of each run, lifting and rotating the moldboard so its curve faced the opposite direction. Some variants used a simple pivot pin; others relied on removing and reinserting the moldboard itself. The rotation had to be precise enough to engage the soil cleanly on the reverse pass, which required strength and skill. In sloping terrain, particularly in chalk and clay counties such as Kent, Sussex, and Surrey, this feature was genuinely useful for maintaining level fields.

Why it faded from use

The turnwrest was labor-intensive and required constant manual intervention. A conventional fixed-moldboard plough, while creating dead furrows and necks, was faster in open level fields and easier to manufacture once iron became affordable. As agricultural consolidation made larger, more uniform fields the norm across England from the 18th century onward, the advantage of the turnwrest on small hillside plots diminished. The term itself is now historical; working examples survive in museum collections and a handful of preserved demonstration farms.

The plough is remembered chiefly in place names and field patterns in southeastern England, where its use shaped the landscape into parallel strips. Agricultural historians distinguish it from the reversible or swing ploughs introduced later with steam power, which automated the turning function.