Manufactured in the UK

Royal Shrovetide Football Game 2016

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Royal Shrovetide Football Game 2016 Everyone in the factory is excited today because of our local traditional street football game. Half the workforce has taken 2 days holiday to go and watch or indeed play! It starts with the painted leather encased cork ball being turned up at 2pm by a local celebrity. Any number of people can play but it can get very rough in the hug so usually only the men play there. The goals are 3 miles apart and the game is played through the streets, river and fishpond. Watched by thousands who follow the hug, the game finishes at 10pm if no ball has been goaled. There are almost no rules (no play is allowed in the churchyard or in private gardens) and we do it all again tomorrow! Our Managing Director Jim Bayliss will be in the hug, pushing hard for the Down’ards!

Bees Getting Trapped in your Greenhouse?

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If you’re a keen gardener, you probably have a lot of bee-friendly plants in your garden so are hopefully seeing a lot of honey bees and bumble bees for example. Bees need people like you, as their numbers are declining for a variety of reasons including, for example, changes in agricultural techniques and the trend towards more hard-landscaping and fewer plants in a lot of gardens. We’ve had a few queries from customers recently about bees getting trapped in their greenhouses. Unfortunately, whilst bees may be attracted in through a small gap, for example when the greenhouse autovent has caused the windows to open in warm weather, they don’t often manage to find their way out the same way. Bees can be useful, for example in pollinating tomatoes, but they usually need help to make their way back to their colony. If left in a greenhouse for too long, they Read more…

Bayliss Innovation in a Victorian Greenhouse

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Lacock Abbey has many claims to fame since being founded as a convent in the 13th Century, with its cloisters being featured in the Harry Potter films and perhaps more significantly as the home of the father of photography, William Fox Talbot. Although Fox Talbot is renowned for invention of the photographic process, he was also an enthusiastic botanist which is reflected in the development of the gardens at Lacock. In common with many historic buildings the abbey and its gardens are now run by the National Trust and the maintenance of such a significant property throws up some interesting challenges. For instance some time ago, Ken Bayliss was approached by the head gardener of Lacock Abbey, to use his experience of greenhouse autovents, to design and manufacture an operating system for a Victorian lean-to greenhouse. The windows in the greenhouse were unusual in that they slid between the glazing Read more…

The Largest Walk-Through Butterfly Experience in the World

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Butterfly World, situated just off the M25 in Hertfordshire, is an exciting new project created by the charismatic butterfly enthusiast Clive Farrell to include nectar rich gardens and stunning wild flower meadows which will provide habitats for many indigenous creatures and attract native butterflies and moths. The centrepiece, of what is anticipated to be a world class attraction, is the tropical butterfly house, which will be home to 10,000 tropical butterflies, hummingbirds, scorpions and spiders. A living rainforest is being created which, it is anticipated, will be visited by 0.7m to 1m people each year. To create a glass bio dome of this nature and magnitude (100 metres in diameter and 17 metres high) requires a high standard of engineering and none more so than in the ventilation system. As a prior customer of Bayliss Autovents, Clive approached our company for sponsorship and we were happy to provide Butterfly World Read more…

Greenhouse Temperature Control the Easy Way

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To be an effective gardener you need a wide variety of equipment from lawn mowers to spades, rakes and even the thing for making holes on the soil to plant your seeds. For serious gardeners the largest and, some would argue, the most important is the greenhouse. A greenhouse can be used for a variety of purposes such as growing exotic plants and vegetables, protecting seedlings or perhaps just finding some peace and quiet. To get the best out of it, one thing that every greenhouse needs, no matter what it is used for, is a constant set temperature and an invaluable aid in achieving this is the automatic greenhouse vent. Autovent The automatic vent, or autovent as it is known, is attached to a window and will open or close it according to the temperature selected by the user. The greenhouse window opener works by using a wax filled Read more…

Energy Conservation in the Garden

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With energy issues on the agenda of just about every news bulletin, it is important for all of us to do our bit to conserve as much energy as possible. Along with this new sense of conservation there has been a return to basics and ‘Grow your own’ has become more popular with lots of people who are now investing in greenhouses and cold frames. There is now a product which can help the green fingered to achieve success in their nursery and conserve energy at the same time. The Green Way to Control Temperature One of the most useful accessories for the greenhouse, helping to conserve energy and not using any itself, is the automatic greenhouse window opener. Using purely solar energy, this appliance regulates the opening and closing of the greenhouse window, making sure your tomatoes don’t get too warm and your plants don’t wilt from heat exhaustion. Read more…

Greenhouse Window Opener

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What does summer mean to you? It may be perhaps the sound of (hopefully) distant lawnmowers, the sight of butterflies darting in the air or bees, industrious and efficient, or maybe the opportunity to sink a few beers and have a barbecue. Whatever the pleasures a sunny day can provide; for gardeners, however, beautiful weather can have a downside. For keen gardeners the greenhouse is an important part of their life, whether they use it for bringing on seedlings, growing exotic plants and hot house vegetables and fruits or just getting a bit of peace and quiet, and for all these things temperature is vital. The easiest way to control the temperature in a greenhouse is simply to open or close the window, but this obvious solution can be more difficult than might first appear for the simple reason that no one may be there to do it. The answer Read more…

Bayliss Down on the Farm

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Whirlow Farm Trust on the outskirts of Sheffield is a charitable enterprise to give children who have no experience of the countryside a taste of life on a farm. It is a working farm with a variety of animals and crops, and as part of its plant cultivation operation has need of a greenhouse, which required some temperature control. Greenhouse Vent Opener Keeping a greenhouse cool can be difficult, however, Bayliss greenhouse vent openers are renowned for their efficiency in maintaining an even temperature in a greenhouse. The Bayliss autovent opens and closes the greenhouse window automatically when the temperature inside reaches a pre set level. The unit uses a tube filled with wax which expands and contracts depending on the ambient temperature. This in turn operates a lever to open or close the window, ensuring the correct temperature is maintained. It was no surprise therefore that when Neville Dearden, Read more…