By Callum Ludwig
The annual Draught Horse and Yesteryear Festival at the Mont De Lancey Historic Homestead is returning for 2025.
This year’s event will be held on Saturday 1 and Sunday 2 March from 10am to 4pm, featuring the fleet of large draught horses at work as well as displays and exhibitions of old-school machinery and skills.
Event Coordinator Lewis Carlton said obviously, the draught horses are the main attraction.
“There’ll be a number of them working in the field and they’ll be in a position so people can have a pat if they wish, all the horses are good and they don’t bite,” he said.
“The sheep shearing is back again for the first time in a few years, we’ll have a man doing shearing of the sheep pretty much every hour on the half hour during the day,”
“Of course, we always hope it’s going to be a success, all we can do is hope for the best, we’ve had the numbers over the years go up and down, last year’s event was a little quiet on a Saturday, but substantially improved on Sunday.”
There will be displays of vintage machinery, a group of men exhibiting older-style hand tools, groups of ladies in the museum showcasing needlework, tatting and lace-making, a display of handmade ceramics, quilts made by the Quilts for Orphans group, the market ‘in full swing’ with food vendors and a display of vintage vehicles, motorcycles and vintage Caterpillar bulldozers as the brand celebrates its 100th anniversary.
For the kids, there will be a jumping castle, activities and potentially donkey rides (yet to be confirmed).
Mr Carlton said the festival is a glimpse of how things were done in years gone by.
“Generally speaking life is a lot easier now than it used to be, whether it’s on the farm or in the suburbs because these days you can flick a switch and light your room or turn on a machine,” he said.
“Whereas in days gone by you had to maneuver heavy machinery around or to power equipment, you also had to replenish your kerosene lanterns on a regular basis so if you wanted light at night time because you didn’t have that wonderful thing called electricity,”
“People back in what we’ll call the old days, weren’t stupid, just the technology was a lot different to nowadays so this gives people an idea of the amount of manpower that was required to perform the tasks of the time.”
General admission is $15 and kids under 15 can enter for free. To book, visit montdelancey.org.au/event/draught-horse-festival-2025/?.
