A 13-year-old girl won a surprise victory against dozens of experienced farmers when she took first place in a ploughing competition.

Elly Deacon had used a plough for the first time just one week before she was crowned champion in the annual Redbourn and District ploughing competition in Hertfordshire.

She beat about 40 other ploughmen – and one ploughwoman – many of whom had years, or in some cases decades, of experience.

Elly was given lessons by her father David Deacon, a farmer from Gorhambury, St Albans.

He said: “Elly hadn’t done any ploughing before and I asked her if she wanted to have a go. She had about four hours’ practice in total before the competition. Then she ended up beating everyone.

“I don’t think anything like this has happened in the competition before.

“You always assume it’s the boys who want to do these things.”

The contest, staged by the Redbourn and District Agricultural Competitions Association on September 12, requires competitors to plough a plot of ground allotted to them.

They are judged on criteria including how straight, level and even their furrows are.

Elly, now 14, was so laid back about her victory that she was more interested in the fact that she had beaten her brother Charlie, 15, her father said.

He said: “She was very cool, calm and collected about it all. She wasn’t overawed by the event at all.

“But her mother Karen and I were very shocked and proud.”