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The hoppers of Kent |
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During the first quarter of the century, most of the beer produced in England was brewed using imported hops grown in the Netherlands. However as the century progressed, the business of cultivating hops in England did too.
Kent probably owes its strong association with hop growing to its prosperous 16th Century farmers who could afford to set up a hop garden and then provide the labour to tend to it – an expensive undertaking. The expertise of Flemish weavers who had settled in the area was also a reason for the area’s adoption of hop cultivation.
A row or 'drift' of hoppers
© Hop Farm Country Park, Kent |
The first English book of hop growing was written by a hop farmer from Kent. ‘A Perfite Platform of a Hoppe Garden’ made its first appearance in 1574, its author Reginalde Scot, farmed land in east Kent. The book describes the finicky process of cultivating hops using poles and other elaborate contraptions that are echoed by modern practises.
Throughout the ensuing centuries, Kent consolidated its grip on England’s hop growing industry. By the 19th Century most of the 35,000 acres given over to hop growing were in Kent, which is also home to some of the most famous varieties of hops – including Colgate and Canterbury Grape.
As Kent’s hop industry expanded, so too did its need for labour to harvest the crop. As with other types of agriculture, the hop crop required little intervention for the majority of the year, but come harvest time, the sheer amount of acreage required a veritable army of hop pickers. The squalor, poverty and prejudice that faced these hoppers put to rest any concept of the romanticised, rural idyll. The experience of the hoppers of Kent shows that in Victorian England, poverty was not confined to cities.
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