As anyone who’s paid a visit to the excellent lawn mower museum in Merseyside will tell you, there’s a surprisingly long and rich history to be found in this particular area of agriculture. It’s also particularly poignant here in the UK where it’s widely agreed the lawn mower was invented.
If you take a walk around the lawn mower museum you’re likely to be struck by just how many different variants have been produced over the years, even during the early days when the idea was still viewed with scepticism by some who were confused by a an approach to cutting the grass that was radically different to the long established yet cumbersome scythe.
Once the lawn mower was established a golden era followed for several British manufacturers such as Qualcast with their much revered ‘Atco’ and ‘Suffolk Punch’ cylinder mowers. In fact modern versions of these are still available today, albeit made under licence by parent company Bosch.
Believe it or not, to this day there are those who swear by the performance and reliability of older machines from the 1920’s or 30’s. They argue that spare parts can be sourced and fitted without too much bother, whereas some modern machines might head for the scrap heap as soon as they have a minor fault.
There’s certainly some merit to this approach, but we still maintain that with the proper research a modern machine will serve you well, taking into account that many are covered by warranty, and do indeed have spares available, so you shouldn’t have too many issues.
Undeniably of course a ‘classic’ lawn mower, like a classic car, will have an ‘object of desire’ type quality about it for some people, with the pleasure of owning such a machine being worth more than the practical performance.
Whether you choose the classic or modern route the bottom line remains the same: do your research to find out exactly which is the right mower for you, and don’t be tempted to head to a generic DIY retailer to ‘pick a box off the shelf’ as you could end up disappointed. It’s far better to take time choosing the right mower in advance of buying, or else you could find yourself spending a whole lot of cash on completely the wrong thing.
