A range of Etesia mowers, including two new Duocut RMHB 46cm pedestrian mowers, are helping to maintain the green space areas surrounding and including Durham university - the UK's third oldest university.

Durham University has a unique estate, which includes 63 listed buildings and also owns and manages the World Heritage Site in partnership with Durham Cathedral. The University's ownership of the World Heritage site includes Durham Castle, Palace Green, and the surrounding buildings including the historic Cosin's library.


Barry Shipman, garden and grounds manager for Durham University has been using Etesia for the up-keep of the facility for over 15 years and has just ordered two ne Duocut RMHB models.

Barry Shipman has been working in the garden and grounds team at the university for over 40 years and was recently promoted to garden and grounds supervisor. He now has a team of nine gardeners to assist with the upkeep of the facility which is roughly a third of Durham city and also includes the botanical gardens.

When purchasing new equipment, Barry discusses matters with the horticultural officer to see what machines are suitable and could make the life of their operators easier which include noise, vibrations etc.

Barry and his team like to keep the grass short and presentable at all times, which over the last year has been very testing, but as he explains, has been made easier with the range of ride-on and pedestrian mowers he discovered over 15 years ago.

"We have an excellent relationship with our local machinery dealer, Lloyds, who are very knowledgeable and they recommended Etesia to us when we were looking for a mower which we could use in the wet and capable of being able to cut and collect or cut and drop," explained Barry.

"I like the fact that we can cut, collect or cut and drop using the same machine because it saves us so much time. We order three new machines per year, which simply replace the oldest ones and so the cycle continues.

"The Etesia mowers have really come into their own in the past 12 months because they have been so good at cutting and collecting in the wet weather we've experienced. We have mobile grass cutting teams and the new Duocut models have been popular with them because they are very light for people to lift on and off van/trailer from site to site.

"We have over 15 ride-on and walk-behind Etesia machines and return to them time and time again because they certainly stand the test of time," says Barry.