Munday Farm Hop Pickers’ Huts

Summary

Hop pickers’ huts. Built in the late nineteenth century.

Reasons for Designation

The hop pickers’ huts at Munday Farm, Pluckley, Kent, built in the late C19, are listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* as exceptionally rare surviving examples nationally of unconverted purpose-built late C19 hop pickers’ huts;

* as comparatively well-preserved late C19 hop pickers’ huts, which appear to retain a legible plan form, providing an example of one of the better types of hop pickers’ accommodation.

Historic interest:

* as a physical manifestation and tangible reminder of an important industry in the social and agricultural history of this country whereby huge numbers of itinerant labourers and workers from Romany Gypsy and Irish Traveller communities, as well as working-class families from London, travelled seasonally to work in the hop-fields of Kent and South East England;

* as a good representation of the change in hop pickers' accommodation from tents or animal sheds to purpose-built huts following campaigns in late C19 England to improve conditions for hop pickers.

Group value:

* as hop pickers’ huts surviving in their original farmstead context, in close association with: Munday Farmhouse, a Grade II-listed C18 farmhouse (List entry 1071449); Munday Oast, a Grade II-listed C19 oasthouse (List entry 1145857), and Old Kingsland Cottage, a Grade II-listed C17 or earlier timber-framed building (List entry 1362661). These form an important ensemble and highly legible survival of the hop industry within Kent’s former hop picking area.

History

Hops are thought to have been introduced to Britain by the Romans, but it was not until the C16 when Flemish weavers began to import their native beer that hops were harvested in England to brew beer. In Kent, with its fertile soil and mild climate, commercial and domestic cultivation of hops proliferated and by the mid-C17 a third of the national crop was produced in the county. The brewing industry expanded rapidly in the C18 and hop production peaked in the late C19.

Before mechanised picking was introduced in the 1950s, the harvesting of hops was a very labour intensive process. Until the C19 these hop pickers were largely itinerant labourers and workers from Romany Gypsy and Irish Traveller communities. By the mid-C19 their numbers were bolstered by huge numbers of working class families from south-east and east London, and further afield, who would leave their homes in the autumn to pick hops, particularly in Kent, Surrey, Sussex and Hampshire. Women and children often travelled independently of the men, who joined their families at the weekend. Londoners first walked, and then travelled by road or train to the hop fields. Many families returned year after year to the same farm, making friendships with fellow pickers and developing a sense of community (Cordle 2011, 138). Thus ‘hopping’ was also a social phenomenon, and hand picking hops lasted for 400 years as a way of life.

The South Eastern Railway ran ‘Hop Pickers’ Specials’ to transport Londoners to the countryside in the 1870s. Initially accommodation for workers included canvas tents, barns, stables, cattle sheds or pigsties. Dirty, overcrowded and unhygienic conditions led to health problems, including an outbreak of cholera at East Farleigh, Kent, in September 1849, which killed 43 hop-pickers (Sutherland and Walton 1995, 6). During the 1860s there were campaigns led by Reverend J Y Stratton and Reverend J J Kendon to improve the conditions of hop pickers. In 1866 the ‘Society for Employment and Improved Lodgings for Hop Pickers’ was formed. The first bylaws covering hop pickers’ accommodation were adopted at Bromley, Kent under the 1874 Sanitary Acts Amendment Act, and subsequently many districts of Kent adopted laws. Purpose-built hop pickers’ huts, or hopper’s huts as they were also known, were erected. Towards the end of the C19, Father Richard Wilson, vicar of St Augustine's, Stepney, founded hospitals for the treatment of hop pickers whilst the Salvation Army also attended to hop pickers’ welfare (Filmer 1992, 44). Among these hospitals is the Grade II-listed Hoppers Hospital at Capel, Kent, founded in 1910 (List entry 1251320).

The standard size of a hopper’s hut was 9 feet by 9 feet or 8 feet by 10 feet (Sutherland and Walton 1995, 9). Initially huts were constructed of timber but following the abolition of the brick tax in 1850 brick huts were built, often clad in corrugated iron sheets. It was unusual to have a single hut built; farmers most often constructed lines or blocks of huts. From about the 1930s, some hopper’s huts were also constructed of breeze blocks, whilst Nissen huts were another form of accommodation. Huts usually had an earth floor and were lit by candles or paraffin lamps. Eventually water was provided via a standpipe, dedicated toilets were erected, usually with an earth closet, and a dedicated cookhouse was often built. Furniture inside the huts was arranged by the pickers themselves, usually with very basic beds; initially faggots (bundles of brushwood) placed under a bedding of straw but by the 1920s palliasses (straw mattresses) and ticks (linen mattress covers) were widely used (Ibid, 9). In the C20 hop picking eventually began to be looked upon as a holiday, offering a change of scenery for many Londoners. However, mechanisation in the 1950s led to a decline in the need for hop pickers or their huts. Surviving purpose-built huts are now rare; most have been demolished or converted to other uses.

The hop pickers’ huts at Munday Farm, Pluckley, were built in the late C19. They are not shown on the 1876 OS map (1:10000) but first appear on the 1898 OS map (1:2500). Immediately to the south-east is Munday Farmhouse, a Grade II-listed C18 farmhouse (List entry 1071449), and Munday Oast, a Grade II-listed C19 oasthouse (List entry 1145857). Immediately to the west is Old Kingsland Cottage, a Grade II-listed C17 or earlier timber-framed building (List entry 1362661).

Details

Hop pickers’ huts. Built in the late C19.

MATERIALS: built of red brick with a corrugated tin or asbestos roof covering.

PLAN: a long rectangular building divided into 17 huts.

DESCRIPTION: purpose-built hop pickers’ huts comprising a single-storey block constructed of red brick and divided into 17 individual huts under a gabled roof. Each hut has a wooden-boarded door and a two-light casement window; each light being divided into three subsidiary panes. Some of the doors have been replaced and one of the doors is half-glazed. There is a corrugated tin or asbestos roof covering.

Sources

Books and journals
Cordle, C, Out of the Hay and into the Hops: Hop cultivation in Wealden Kent and hop marketing in Southwark, 1744-2000, (2011)
Filmer, R, Hops and hop picking, (1992)
Sutherland, E, Walton, R, Kent and Sussex Hop Pickers’ Hovels, Huts and Houses: Construction and History , (1995)

Other
Historic OS maps: 1876 (1:10000) and 1898 (1:2500).
English Heritage, National Farm Building Types (2014). Available online at: https://historicengland.org.uk/images-books/publications/national-farm-building-types/

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