Today this abandoned parlour feels dated, hovering somewhere between high-tech and Heath Robinson. It’s a place that tells of changes in a completely un-nostalgic way. Many small- and medium-sized dairies have disappeared in the last few years as economic and disease pressures have taken their toil, distancing us ever more from the animal. Some I have visited have been scrubbed away to make way for a new activity; on one farm only the rubble-filled pit a reminder of what when before. Others have been kept and reused, including one I came across that had become the studio for an artist.