Swath turner at Mirehouse

 

This is a horse-drawn machine for turning rows of cut hay to help them dry. I was taken by the way that mechanical power is transmitted from the turning wheel to the rotating forks that turn the hay. There is a bevelled gear attached to the back axle that turns a shaft so that the turning direction has been rotated through 90 degrees in the horizontal plane. Then the bevelled gear at the top end rotates it in the vertical plane. In effect, we've gone from rotation around the x-axis to rotation around the y-axis and finally around the z-axis. It's opened up thinking about the efficiency of gears https://www.meadinfo.org/2008/11/gear-efficiency-spur-helical-bevel-worm.html

I hadn't come across the word "swath" but it means a row of cut hay. It will be linked to the word "swathe" that I do know. Photos of similar machines can be found here. I have been reading James Rebanks' English Pastoral which explains the hay system very well.