Written by Shirley Bray – March 2007 – updated June 2019

Richard (Dicky) Bawden, born at North Molton c 1859, and a blacksmith by trade started the Star Plough Works in the mid to late 1880s in premises behind the Star Temperance Hotel, East Street, South Molton. Dicky had a quick and active brain and went on to become a brilliant agricultural engineer. Ploughs were his speciality and he not only worked at making improvements but patented his own inventions and eventually went on to invent a plough which could be used by one man on a tractor.

In 1896, the Star Plough Works was formed into The Star Agricultural Engineering Company Limited with Dicky as one of the shareholders. Dicky stayed with the firm until about 1901 when he left to work on his own in a workshop at the rear of South Street/Cooks Cross adjacent to Moors Coach Building Works. According to Arthur Watts Dicky was still working there in 1939 - Arthur, who worked at Moors, by then converted into a Garage, recalls Dicky supplying ploughs and other implements of his own design to Moors Garage.

The Star Agricultural Engineering Co. was sold in 1912 to Tom Snell who ran the business until 1944 when his daughter Molly and son-in-law Bill Dyer took over. Bill Dyer was a mechanic, he owned Aller Cross Garage and ran both businesses until 1950 when he sold the garage and moved into the Star. Bill and Molly Dyer set about modernising the premises – new garages were built - the top one in 1947 and the bottom one in 1959. During 1952/3, a new showroom was built on the site of the old Star Temperance Hotel; the living accommodation was demolished and rebuilt whilst the Dyer family were still living there. Bill and Molly’s son, Tony, remembers that at the time of the Lynmouth flood (1952) the front of the house had been demolished and the only way into the bedrooms was via a ladder!

The business supplied local farmers with new tractors; ploughs and other farm machinery as well as carrying out repairs in the workshops. A blacksmith, Tom Rendle, was employed who mended binder canvases and repaired engines. Jim Holcombe, Jack Leworthy and Stan Leworthy all learnt their trade prior to the Second World War. During the 1950s/1960s Cyril Coles worked in the blacksmith shop and repaired tractors. Arthur Maddox was the blacksmith and Bill Carnes repaired engines.

From July 1956 – until early 1958, Shirley Bray (nèe Sinclair) was employed in the office as book-keeper/clerk at £2. 15s. 0d (£2.75) per week. The office at that time was an outbuilding in the yard, the new office not then completed. At the age of 16 this was Shirley’s first job and she was made responsible for paying the monthly bills, sending out accounts, entering the transactions into the ledgers and balancing at the end of the month. She also did any secretarial work required. The men were paid weekly in cash and Shirley took the pay packets down to the workshops. Shirley’s hours of work were Monday to Friday from 8.30 am – 5.30pm, 6 p.m. on Thursday (market day) and Sheep Fair Day - plus Saturday mornings 8.30 am – 12.30. As far as she remembers the men started work earlier in the morning.

She remembers the large showroom full of gleaming new farm machinery – tractors; ploughs; milking machines, to name a few. Reconditioned second-hand machines were sold and a large stock of spare parts kept. It was the custom for the farmers to pay their accounts quarterly, and even having had three months credit they still expected to be given a discount! Market Day was always busy when, with their boots thick with mud and full of farmyard smells, the farmers would come into the office to place their orders, pay their bills or just to have a chat with Bill and Molly Dyer and of course to haggle over discount.

Molly Dyer died in 1959. Bill continued to run the business and on his death in 1968 it was leased to Alan and Marilyn Bowen. The workmen at this time were Cyril Coles, Arthur Eastman, (blacksmith), Chris Lethbridge, Robert Kingdon and Jimmy Taylor. Alan and Marilyn ran the Star Agricultural Engineering Co., until the mid 1980s when the business came to an end. After this various Estate Agents used the showroom, it has been a dress shop and today, June 24th 2019 the showrooms house a popular café/restaurant named Zest. A number of small businesses use the buildings at the rear.

Sources:

1881 & 1891 census returns

“North Devon Industries”

Memorandum of Association 1896

Cyril Coles

Arthur Watts

Shirley Bray

Tony Dyer

Newspaper cutting 1961