Hop Picking

[kiwi]

Post by lennypat 2011.
Hi hop grabbers..... Lennypat here..me too....I used to go 'oppin..we went to Tipples's farm. HEARTS HEATH FARM at Marden..reading what you people have writen sure takes me back..When my family stopped going in the early 60s myself and my brother and sister realy missed the fresh air and freedom of basicly running wild for a few weeks.We lived at Surrey docks, And traveled to kent in my dad’s lorry, we were so excited the day we left Rotherhithe, we got up at 5am (about 4 hrs before we were due to leave) the journey seemed to take hours. stopping at the top of Death hill to stretch our legs. we knew when we were nearly there because you could smell the fires burning from the people already there boiling kettles for a cuppa ,me and my sister went to our old farm a couple of years ago, traveling down Seven mile lane through Yalding etc ..the journey only took us just over an hour (although we now live at Abbey wood.. it still didn’t take ages like it did in the 60s you would leave London at 9 oclock and arrive at dinner time.) I said to my brother can you imagine going 'oppin these days you wouldn’t rough it now would you. with gas heaters portable telly’s mobile phones battery powered microwaves etc .....NO, YOU WOULD TRAVEL HOME AND GO BACK THE NEXT DAY......Happy days though your never gonna get them days back..are you?

Harts Heath Farm & the Tipples family are still growing hops today (2017). Your right Lennypat, but we still have our memories and though these pictures are not from our time down hopping (except the horses) I hope they bring back some memories for all of us that lived that happy life all those years ago.

TIPPLES FARM (2017)

2016

2016

[kiwi]

THE HOPPERS HOSPITAL MARDEN. SITE IS NOW THE MARDEN MEDICAL CENTRE (2017)

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Boy does this bring back some memories,those were the days

A woman prepares a meal for hop pickers at the Whitbread hop camp in Paddock Wood, Kent. (1937)

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The children’s tea party, which was photographed in the 1940s , is part of a tradition of community events which has continued at the farm. This still happened for many years when hopping ceased in the War & Peace show. Whitbread's no longer own all the farm, if any now? (2017).

Whitbread, Beltring, Kent, 1940.

[kiwi]

Hoppers at work at Whitbread’s Farm at Beltring, Kent. c.1930

[kiwi]

Almost certain this is Wateringbury Railway Station.

Hop pickers arrive at the Kentish hop fields,1910.

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Beltring Hop Farm,the interior of bell five (oast house) is pictured in 1956 as hop pickers celebrated the end of the season with a harvest supper. The oat house is now a giant children’s indoor play area, after it was saved from dereliction in the mid-1980s.

[kiwi]

Hop-picking in Yalding, Kent,1944. A view of a campsite on a hop farm in Yalding, Kent. Women work at cooking on the camp fires provided outside the row of huts, which are named after bomber aircraft. A washing line has been strung up outside one of the huts, the clothes flapping in the breeze. line has been strung up outside one of the huts, the clothes flapping in the breeze.

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Goudhurst High Street. Who remembers the mobile fish shop