by Nick Drew | Fri 15 Dec 2023
Farwell Reaches Further
Mark Farwell (61) started his working career as an apprentice agricultural mechanic with a local John Deere dealership. His interest in diggers started when he was out on a farm one day, and he spotted an old Fordson Major tractor with a Whitlock loader and backhoe mounted on it, after much deliberating with the farmer, they eventually agreed a deal and he purchased the machine.
That machine was later replaced by a much newer JCB 3C with which Mark started taking on ground-works jobs in the evenings and at weekends, eventually getting to a point where he had enough work in the pipeline to be able to give up his job as a mechanic and focus on the plant hire game. A Bedford lorry was the next purchase, closely followed by a Massey Ferguson 450S 360o hydraulic excavator. The old JCB also hailed the start of a long association with the iconic British brand which continues to this day.
Son Matt (35) took a similar route, having served his apprenticeship for a local New Holland dealership before returning to the family business in 2010. Twin brother Martin took a different route, having gone off to university to study construction management, before taking roles with some large construction companies to gain on site experience. He returned to the family business 10 years ago to manage the construction and groundworks side of the company, while Matt runs the plant, transport and farm operations, which includes 550 acres of arable land.
The boys are joined in the office by sister Catherine (36) who takes care of those all-important clerical duties and mans the phone lines.
On the construction side of things, they are now running 2-3 gangs working primarily on agricultural buildings, yard concreting and building conversion work. They have become so busy that they found they were struggling to get concrete when they wanted it, so the solution to that was to install their own concrete batching plant at the yard and create a spin off business Blandford Concrete which operates 3 x mixer trucks effectively bringing another aspect to the business in-house.
The Down End Farm facility really is a one-stop shop for everything, as in more recent years the company has moved into the recycling industry, including a licensed tip, green waste recycling, soil screening, concrete crushing and with aggregate sales and muck away services, they really do have every base covered locally.
The latest additions to the fleet from the JCB stable include a 220XLC Long Reach hydraulic excavator which has replaced an outgoing Case CX210LC LR. The new machine joins an existing JS220LC Long Reach model on the fleet which has proven to be a great machine in the time they have been running it.
The JCB 3CX has long been a backbone of the Farwell business and they still continue to have a healthy presence on the fleet to this day. Talking about the humble backhoe loader Matt said, “At one point dad was buying 14 x 3CX machines in a renewal deal, but the compact rubber tracked midi excavator has eaten away at the market these days, so last year we bought 7 x backhoe loaders, and in addition added more 6 and 8-tonne mini excavators”.
Matt continued, “There will always be a place for the 3CX in our business, we do a lot with Dorset Highways, and Poole Council have got one on hire at the moment, and we have one out digging trial holes at the moment which we will go and see later.
We did take a look at the Hydradig when they first brought it out, and Holts put one into us on demo for a while, but we found it was quite an expensive machine, and our customers missed the versatility of having a front bucket and a backhoe, it’s a good piece of kit, but for now we will stick with the backhoe loaders”.
The company did invest in some Hitachi excavators for a while, but have since returned to JCB since the launch of the X-Series machines. The current tally of X-Series models includes 5 x 140XLC’s, which were all purchased new last year, 1 x 220XLC, and the aforementioned 220XLC Long Reach model, which was delivered most recently, in total the company are running an impressive 48 JCB machines on the fleet all of which have been supplied by local dealer Holt JCB.
Other JCB kit of note includes mini excavators from 1.5-tonne to 8.5-tonne, 16 x telehandlers, a Fastrack 4220, and a selection of JCB Vibromax rollers.
The company got into the long reach excavator market after taking on some big lake dredging operations on private estates including a high-profile job at Longleat, which initially started off with one LR machine, but ultimately required two machines which was when they acquired the CASE machine.
When the machines are not doing lake dredging, they are kept busy on farms digging out slurry lagoons. “It’s quite a niche sector, but we find the long reach machines are nearly always busy, we have also had a number of steep embankment and landslip jobs to undertake with them too, and we also have a compaction plate attachment for them too which the councils find very useful for compacting the banks. In addition, we also have a grab attachment which has proven very useful for clear-up operations in rivers after storm damage.” Said Matt.
We caught up with the new 220XLC Long Reach within the grounds of Woolland House which covers some 17 acres of land in an area of outstanding natural beauty in Dorset, where it was removing silt build up from a couple of ponds, which eventually feed water into a large lake on a lower plateau.
At the controls of the 220XLC LR on the day of our visit was Steve Hooper, who has worked for Farwell’s for 5 years. Steve’s regular mount is one of the 14-tonne 140XLC models, but as a very adaptable operator he is often deployed on a variety of machines as and when needed.
Steve had previously spent time on the older JS220LC long reach model, but was keen to give us his thoughts on the X-Series models. “I like the X-Series a lot, they are a very nice machine, precise in movement, very comfortable cab, they really tick all the boxes in my opinion”.
The machine is powered by the JCB 448 Dieselmax 4-cylinder 4.8 litre power pack which is Stage V EU emissions compliant, producing a power output of 129kw (173hp).
The latest Japanese Kawasaki pump provides a much-improved high flow of hydraulic oil, which is delivered through larger 25mm diameter pipe lines, working in combination with the Kayaba valve block, it delivers super smooth hydraulic precision that in this application is much needed when working at such long distances from the base machine.
There was something quite majestic about this machine as we watched it working, and I could really understand Steve’s comments on the smoothness and precision as it went about its business, even at full stretch of 15,628mm it remained superbly balanced throughout its working arc. Maximum digging reach at ground level is 15,514mm, while a maximum digging depth of 11,985mm can be achieved.
Matt said, “From our experience with our first X-Series, the standard boom 220XLC, we knew this would be a quality piece of kit, and it has more than exceeded our expectations”.
Our next port of call was to see one example from the fleet of 3CX’s at work digging trial holes for the next phase of a housing development. One thing that was refreshing to see, was that all these machines are on the old-style cross pattern sticks for the backhoe, and working on those controls was Tony Maidment who has been working for Farwell’s for 6 years.
Tony is apparently another of those multi-faceted operators, who can turn his hand to any piece of kit on the fleet, and he had a few things to say about the 3CX, “It’s a good compact backhoe loader, some like them, some don’t like them, but I think it’s a good all-round machine, and as we know, you’ll always get hire for a JCB.
Tony continued, “I do have a couple of niggly things though, in the first instance, when you turn the key on you get the buzzer, now unless you enter the code and start the machine, that buzzer won’t stop, which is annoying during break times when you just want to listen to the radio, the other thing is the roof guttering, a common complaint, it just allows the rain to run down the front of the screen, and that continues for half an hour after the rain has stopped, but as I say, just niggly things really”.
Summarizing Matt said, “Dad has been buying JCB’s from Holt’s for as long as I can remember, as I said, mainly 3CX’s, excavators and telehandlers, we have a great working relationship with our Territory Sales Manager Rob Sprankling and Construction Manager Rob Seiler, and in terms of back-up, our local Holt’s Blandford depot is brilliant, we get a lot of support from Depot Manager Adam Pidgley and his team, and I see no reason why this will not continue going forward”.
THE MARK FARWELL MUSEUM
One of the highlights of a visit to Farwell Plant Hire, is a meander inside Mark’s personal museum, his private collection of locally sourced historical tractors, machines and vehicles and associated memorabilia.
Now housed in a purpose-built shed the collection includes agricultural tractors from the likes of Fordson, Ford, Fowler, Field Marshall, and Allis-Chalmers, with tracked type tractors from International Harvester, Fowler and Allis-Chalmers are also presented.
Motors cars and trucks also feature from Ford and Bedford, while a solitary JCB 3C like the one Mark first owned has also been restored for the collection.
I know from a previous visit that housed in another shed there are more examples of tracked machines from Caterpillar, Cletrac and Track-Marshall awaiting restoration.
The Farwell’s also have an impressive collection of steam traction engines from Marshall, which they often presented at the Great Dorset Steam Fair in the past.
This is a superb collection of vehicles which will be around to show future generations for years to come, and a real credit to Mark, who according to son Matt, can more often than not be found tinkering away inside at the weekends.