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I know nothing about Shay, but I thought I’d have a look in the corners of the internet and see what I could find.
I cannot see anything similar. Shay did produce the Countryman, approximately a 1960s machine, photo attached.
Do you have any further information that may narrow it down, such as the width of the cut, the size of the rear wheels, whether it has had any original guards removed, or does it have any self-propelled function?
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It does look like the slitter and others were fitted on the back in place of the rake bit. I’ve found a photo in the 1985 brochure with the slitter attached.
Until I looked, I hadn’t realised that the Lawngroomer Mark1 was such a short-lived attachment – just 1983 to 1986.
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I have looked through my Westwood brochures, and two pages detail the Lawngroomer which may be of help. Attached as a PDF.
Westwood used to have instructions on their website for the range of tractors but not implements. Anyway, the company is now defunct, and the website is no longer available.
The Lawngroomer is early 1980s. In the mid-1980s it was given away as a free accessory when a new Westwood tractor was bought.
Up until early 1986, it was listed (Mark 1) with the sprayer, rake, brush and spiker at £175, with the lance, slitter and roller (each £29.50) listed as additional items.
Ransomes bought Westwood in 1986, and later that same year the *NEW* Mark 2 takes over and is listed at £175 including the sprayer, rake, spiker, slitter, and a free hand-held spray lance. I assume the Mark 2 is the model with the integrated tanks – it appears in Westwood/Ransomes adverts before being deleted from price lists in 1992. Subsequent Westwood brochures show a separate wheeled aerator and a dethatcher instead of the Lawngroomer – presumably these two were bought-in items.
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There’s certainly a couple of models of the Braune/Batric carts. They seem to have been made starting in the 1960s but not sure exactly when. The invalid cars were more successful and were certainly produced into the 1980s.
I wonder if the carts and invalid cars used much the same (or interchangeable) wiring, motor and battery systems?
There are some photos of the Braune/Batric stuff in the gallery.
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Attached is the BV series brochure, which may date from the mid-1980s.
Also, a 1987 Tecumseh advert and a 1978 Aspera advert. Both are from UK magazines.
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I have poked around the internet to see what I can find about the buildings on Stirling Corner Borehamwood. I assume these were the Opperman premises – but if anyone knows differently then please correct me.
The Ordnance Survey maps show a building appeared at Stirling Corner in 1938 – Opperman started there in 1938/39. This building no longer exists as the Morrisons supermarket building has replaced it.
The same footprint of buildings is on a 1945 image.
Interestingly, the roundabout at Sterling Corner features in many films, presumably because the Elstree Studios are only 1.5 miles up the road and filming was done in this area. The buildings on this corner appear briefly in an episode of the 1958 detective series ‘Dial 999’ – I looked at the film and have a screenshot. Were these the Borehamwood Opperman premises?
Monty Python filmed the sketch “The 127th Upper Class Twit of the Year” on the sports field on the opposite side of the road to the buildings, but it’s too vague to see anything.
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That does look like a Gutbrod ride-on mower – or identical to a Gutbrod. Is there any Gubrod identification and can you tell the original colour?
Your tractor looks complete, although I cannot see if you have the mower deck. It is a reasonably scarce machine and the 1966 engine code seems a likely date.
I recall the mower deck would possibly have been 24″ wide. It would have been side-discharge by the front right wheel.
There can be a slight difference in the seat spring, bonnet design, engine size (4 or 5 hp), gearbox can be 1 or 3 forward speeds, and tyres can be pneumatic or the semi-pneumatic ones which essentially are just hard rubber.
On the Gutbrods, the steel seat, steering wheel, engine, mower deck and wheel centres would have been painted white. The rest of the machine, apart from the unpainted gearbox, would have been red.
Pictures attached.
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