Letters to the Editor

You may remember that I sent a query in a previous edition of the Magazine about possible uses for hop bines after harvesting. I’ve been working for some time on the wider aspects of hop growing in Essex, which was second only in production to Kent in the mid-seventeenth century. Apart from a short-lived post-WWII plantation, the last Essex hop was picked in the late 1880s, the acreage grown here having dwindled relentlessly from the early eighteenth century.

Almost no traditional hop drying kilns have survived in the Essex landscape, and, if they do, they are difficult to distinguish from malt or grain drying kilns, of which there are some actual examples to be found. The few survivors have been considerably modified and repurposed since hop growing and small farm maltings disappeared by the nineteenth century.

I’m hoping there might be someone in KAS with a particular interest in the history of hop growing in Kent with whom I could communicate to exchange information and ideas. Anthony Cronk provided two articles on Kent oasts for Arch Cant in the late 1970s.

Still, I assume he is unlikely to be around now, and I’ve not been able to identify anyone else, apart from Patrick Grattan, whose book on oasts is about to be published.

XXXXX

Any suggestions will be very gratefully received. Best wishes,

Michael Leach

The article ‘Lenham Camp’ in the magazine’s summer 2021 edition mentioned the much better known camp at Coxheath, with its associated frivolous and scandalous goings-on, inspiring a novel and performances in London’s theatreland and elsewhere. Attached to this email [shown below] is a photograph of the tune selection dial of a musical clock made, or more probably retailed, in Deptford in the early 19th century. In addition to the celebratory ‘Rule Britannia’ and ‘Nelson’s Waltz’ is a tune with the title ‘Trip to Coxheath’, perhaps initially written for the theatre. There is also one called ‘Stour Lodge’. What, and where, was Stour Lodge at that time?

Ted Parker,

Canterbury