Hopper hut

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A hopper hut was a form of temporary accommodation provided for hop-pickers on English farms in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Background

London Chatham and Dover Railway were running Hop Pickers' Specials to transport Londoners to the towns and villages at the start of the season. Similar trains were run to serve the pickers in Herefordshire and Worcestershire. An estimated 250,000 hop pickers from London were travelling to Kent by the early twentieth century [citation needed]. In Hampshire, some workers came from the Portsmouth, Southampton and Salisbury areas. Hopper huts were also provided in Herefordshire and Worcestershire. Workers in these two counties would come from the Black Country or South Wales. The miners from South Wales remained at home and carried on working at their pits. Accommodation in the early Victorian period would be in barns, stables, cattle sheds, pigsties, tents or the roof space of buildings. This led to problems with hygiene and therefore health. An outbreak of cholera killed 43 hop-pickers at East Farleigh in September 1849.[1][2][3][4][5][6][7]

In 1865, the Rev J Y Stratton began a campaign to improve the conditions of the hop-pickers. Also during the 1860s, the Rev J J Kendon, visiting Goudhurst, was appalled at the plight of the hop pickers and began campaigning for improvements. This led to the formation of the Society for Employment and Improved Lodgings for Hop Pickers in 1866. The first bylaws covering hop-pickers' accommodation were adopted at Bromley in Kent under the Sanitary Acts Amendment Act, 1874. Kendon made his headquarters at Curtisden Green and by 1889 had a team of over a dozen missionaries.

In 1898, Father Richard Wilson, a priest from

Salvation Army also used to visit the hop pickers in the fields and attend to their welfare. There was also a Hoppers Hospital at Marden, which was not connected with the one at Five Oak Green.[1][2][11][12][13][14]

Construction

pre-cast concrete at this time. Nissen Huts were also used as accommodation for hop-pickers.[1][15]

The huts generally had an earth floor, and were lit by either candles or paraffin lamps. Water would be via a standpipe which had to be within 150 yards (140 m) and

limewashed or distempered.[1]

The furniture within the huts was provided by the pickers. Only very basic bedding was provided - hay and ferns,

palliasse. Some pickers built themselves basic beds of scrap timber with a palliasse. In the late 1940s and 1950s ex-army steel frame beds were used.[1][2]

George Orwell

George Orwell tried his hand at hop-picking at Blest's Farm, somewhere near West Malling,[16] in September 1931, travelling down from London disguised as a tramp. He spent his time living in a Hopper Hut made of tin (corrugated iron), thus discovering that fruit and hop picking was not quite the idyllic life described by many scholars and writers of the time. Orwell earned 9/- in a week, and observed that a family of gypsies who had picked every year since birth earned 14/- each. His account was published in A Clergyman's Daughter in 1935.[1][11][17]

Survival, conversion, preservation and re-creation

Museum of Kent Life, Sandling. These were a row of six huts built of brick under a peg tiled roof, with integral fireplaces.[18][1]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g Hovels, huts & houses
  2. ^ a b c A Pocketful of Hops
  3. ^ "Buriton".
  4. ^ "LGFL". Archived from the original on 1 September 2009. Retrieved 17 December 2007.
  5. ^ "Hants CC".
  6. ^ Museum of London
  7. ^ Hopping down in Kent George Orwell's account of conditions in September 1931
  8. ^ "HOPPERS HOSPITAL, Capel - 1251320 | Historic England". historicengland.org.uk. Retrieved 3 March 2020.
  9. ^ "Charity Details". beta.charitycommission.gov.uk. Retrieved 3 March 2020.
  10. ^ "Hoppers: Home". www.hopperskent.org. Retrieved 3 March 2020.
  11. ^ a b Hops & Hop Picking
  12. ^ "BBC - Legacies - Work - England - Kent - The hoppers of Kent - Article Page 4". www.bbc.co.uk.
  13. ^ "Marden Hoppers Hospital". Archived from the original on 20 November 2008. Retrieved 17 December 2007.
  14. ^ Old Days in the Kentish Hop Gardens
  15. ^ "Hopper Huts". Archived from the original on 16 December 2006. Retrieved 17 December 2007.
  16. ^ "Town on a ten-pound note". Kent Life. Archived from the original on 7 September 2008. Retrieved 1 December 2008.
  17. ^ Derek Bright
  18. ^ "Museum of Kent Life".

Sources

Further reading

Oasts

Hop picking

External links
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