Kentish Express Ashford & District
Raise your glasses and celebrate history of hops
An exhibition on the history of Kent’s hop industry is currently being staged at Maidstone’s Kent History and Library Centre (KHLC).
It will be accompanied by three talks by experts on the subject with visitors offered the chance to taste samples of some of the county’s unique beers at the launch.
The first talk, called Hops in Kent – the first 1,000 years, is being given by Dr Peter Darby, the man behind Canterbury– based Wye Hops, which is a subsidiary of the British Hop Association and a vital research centre for the hop industry.
Dr Darby will be the guest speaker at the KHLC in James Whatman Way on Thursday, October 6, starting at 6.15pm. Those attending will be able to taste beer samples supplied by The Cellars Alehouse, in Maidstone.
Tickets cost £5 and places can be booked by calling 03000 414404 or emailing libraries@kent.gov. uk.
The second event linked to the exhibition is a film screening introduced by Dr Frank Gray, director of Screen Archive South East, entitled Working on the Land – Kent on Film, on Thursday, October 20.
He will present a set of rare films of Kentish life in the 1930s related to rural lives, communities and practices.
It will feature Egerton, Littlebourne Mill and a new discovery – a portrait of the high streets of Cranbrook and Hawkhurst 80 years ago.
A musical event called Hopping Down in Kent, featuring Geoff Doel and John Morgan, will be held on Thursday, October 27.
The hopping industry exhibition continues during normal library opening hours at the KHLC until October 29 with film footage from Screen Archive South East and archive documents from the county collections on display.
Traditionally, thousands of Londoners used to descended on Kent each year to harvest the county’s hop crop.
The Kent & East Sussex Railway alone played an essential role in bringing about 4,000 hop pickers to Bodiam each summer on specially timetabled trains from London.
The pickers were mainly women, their children and elderly relatives, and hop picking was often an annual holiday for families who would stay for several weeks enjoying the fresh, countryside air.
Bodiam was at the heart of the Rother Valley hop industry, and the Guinness hop farms – centred on the village – were the largest in the country, covering 1,400 acres with 850 acres under hops.
The last Bodiam hops were picked in 1970 as overseas prices made traditionally Kent-grown hops less viable.