Hop growing and drying shared in the leap forward of agriculture in 18th Century Britain, especially in the second half of the century when the growing population in towns and cities increased demand for beer. The Farnham area on the Surrey-Hampshire borders saw string growth in the 18th Century and […]
Barn style oasts, without conical kilns, but often expanded into a T shape to accommodate two or more kilns at one end, or in a row at the side of the stowage, continued into the 18th Century. It is striking that Richard Bradley in Riches of the Hop Garden Explained, […]
A group of tall pyramidal kilns topped by white cowls, visible across the landscape is the classic image of a hop oast. Yet it is not at all clear when, where and how the idea of building a tall pyramidal square kiln, seperate from the stowage with its lower roof […]
If the diarist and antiquarian John Aubrey (author of Brief Lives) is to be believed hop growing and drying arrived in Farnham, Surrey by the end of the 16th Century. He wrote Perambulations of Surrey in 1673 and recorded that at Farnham there are hops in as great plenty as […]
The 19th Century was the peak of hop growing and drying in the UK. The majority of surviving kilns and oasts date from then. This was the era of the round kiln or roundal. Volatility was a continuing feature of the hop business. Production expanded sharply during the Napoleonic wars […]
A large supply of hands were needed to pick even one acre of hops. So the tradition of itinerant workers arriving for the picking season was early established. But in the 19th Century with the huge increase in acreage went an expansion in the hop picking “phenomenon” – the mass […]
Barns, sheds, malt kilns and other buildings were still being converted for hop drying in the 19th Century, according to Lance. But by this time barn -style oasts with one or more kilns in the middle and a loading and cooling floor at either end are described as “the old […]
Hop growing and drying flourished in Hereford and Worcestershire in response to demand from the Midlands. Soil conditions along the slopes of the valleys of the Rivers Teme, Lugg and Frome were excellent. Increased acreage and building of new kilns was especially strong in the second half of the century […]
By the 19th Century there was a diversity of heating systems ranging from the simplicity of the traditional brick open stove to elaborate and high cost iron stoves and pipework. Samuel Rutley (Journal of the RAS, 1848) surveyed the options and concluded that he was not able to say […]
The practice of making a hole in the first floor cooling area with a ring to hold the hop pocket (bag) suspended from it probably started in the 17th Century and continued little changed up to the 19th Century. Lance in 1838 commented that “the process of treading is […]
New Book on Oast and Hop Kiln History.