Who’s Hoo of Saxon names
QUESTION How did Kent’s Hoo Peninsula and Isle of Grain get their names?
The hoo Peninsula is a marshy outcrop of land on the north Kent coast between the Thames and Medway estuaries.
The earliest recorded use of the Saxon word hoo dates from the 7th century. It comes from the Old english hoh, meaning a heel or sharply projecting spur of land.
By the time of the Domesday survey in 1086, the central part of the peninsula was known as the hundred of hoo, a hundred being a Saxon administrative area.
By the 17th century, travellers and diarists were using the word hoo to refer to the entire peninsula, including the Isle of Grain.
The parish of the Isle of Grain occupies the eastern extremity of the peninsula. The name Grain — also spelt Grean, Greyn, Grayne and Graine — is thought to derive from gravel, referring to the gravelly, sandy shore, a feature of the island long ago lost to erosion.
There were two settlements on the higher ground: the village of St James Grain, now simply Grain, and the hamlet of Upland or Wall end, now known as Wallend. The Isle of Grain was once a true island, separated from the hoo peninsula by the Yantlet waterway, which connected the Medway to the Thames. It silted up in the mid-19th century.
The isolation of the island was undermined in the 19th century by a succession of military structures, including a tower, fort and batteries.
In 1950, it became home to BP’s Kent oil refinery, followed by Grain power station in 1972, which dominate the landscape. Joe Weston, Strood, Kent.
QUESTION Why was sugar produced and sold in cones?
RefIneD sugar was made in a conical shape, often called sugar loaf, from medieval times until the late 19th century. The shape was a result of the final part of the production process. An inverted cone was the best way to drain impurities.
The historic refining method involved raw sugar, extracted from sugar cane, being boiled with lime water.
The resulting liquid was mixed with egg whites, ox blood or clay to purify it. This produced a layer of scum that was scraped off.
The sugar liquid was repeatedly boiled and allowed to evaporate until it reached optimal viscosity and was then left in a vat to cool. When the solution began to crystallise, it was poured into coneshaped moulds.
The pointed base of each mould had a hole in it that was plugged with a twist of paper. Once the sugar began to harden, the plug was removed so impurities could drain out.
To improve the whiteness of the sugar, repeated applications of a solution of white clay or sugar dissolved in warm water was poured through the loaf.
The loaves were tapped out of the moulds, dried in a stove room, trimmed to their final shape and wrapped in sugar paper. This was often blue to accentuate the whiteness of the sugar.
each household would have iron sugar nips — large, heavy pliers with sharp blades — to cut the sugar and grind it. Jesse Millner, Chepstow, Monmouth.
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