Building record TQ 74 NE 144 - Hop Pickers' Huts at Boughton Bottom Farm

Hop pickers’ huts to the east of Boughton Bottom Farm. The building first appears in the 1st edition OS map, so was likely constructed in the middle of the nineteenth century, and remains visible in the aerial photographs of 2008.

Identified by the Historic farmsteads Survey. (1)

Designated as a Listed Building in 2026.
Summary
A single-storey row of hop pickers' huts with a central cookhouse, built by 1885 and used as seasonal accommodation for hop pickers until the early 1990s.

Reasons for Designation
The Hop Pickers' Huts at Boughton Bottom Farm, built by 1885, 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 examples of late C19 hop pickers' huts with a legible plan form and former cookhouse, forming an example of the typical, modest hop pickers' accommodation of the period.

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.

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 requiring large numbers of seasonal workers. 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 Hoppers' 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 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 earliest extant row of hop pickers' huts at Boughton Bottom Farm appear on the 1:2500 Ordnance Survey (OS) map of 1885. They are situated towards the north end of a field a short distance to the east of the farm and there are two later rows of huts in the same field. The huts were in continuous use by hop pickers until the early 1990s. Since then they have been rented out for recreational use by former hop pickers and their descendants.

Details
A row of hop pickers' huts built by 1885.

MATERIALS: the building has walls of red brick laid predominantly in English bond, with corrugated iron sheeting and timber doors to the south elevation. The timber roof structure supports a corrugated iron covering.

PLAN: a linear, single-storey block, with long elevations to the north and south. Brick partitions divide the block into nine bays. The central bay is slightly wider and was originally a cookhouse with two rooms, one with a brick fireplace. Each of the four bays either side of the cookhouse is an individual hut, each with a single doorway. Two of the huts to the west of the cookhouse have been connected with an internal doorway knocked through their dividing wall, as have three of the huts to the east of the cookhouse.

EXTERIOR: the single-storey building has exterior walls of red brick to the north and east. The west end wall collapsed when a tree fell on this end of the building a few years ago, and has subsequently been dismantled. The interior spine walls dividing each hut present as red brick piers to the south elevation, with corrugated iron sheeting between them to enclose each hut. Each hut is accessed through a timber, stable-type door and has a single timber window frame adjacent to the doorway. The central cookhouse bay is open to the south. There is no longer an external chimney stack. The pitched roof of corrugated iron is supported on a timber roof structure. It is likely that the roof covering is a later replacement.

INTERIOR: each hut has internal dimensions of approximately 3 metres across by 3.5 metres deep. All of them would originally have had earth floors but now have concrete slabs overlaid with carpet or linoleum. The interior walls and ceilings of the huts have mostly been lined with plasterboard or hardboard, and metal sheeting in some places. The exception is the westernmost hut, which has no covering to its interior wall of whitewashed brick. The cookhouse has an earth floor with some concrete slabs and interior walls of exposed red brick. A central brick wall contains the chimney stack with two fireplaces on its west side; these have English bond brickwork with segmental arches. There are four huts to the east of the cookhouse. The first three of these have had internal doorways knocked through to create a single unit. Of the four huts to the west of the cookhouse, the central two also have an internal door between them. (2)

<1> Forum Heritage Services, 2012, Kent Farmsteads & Landscape Project (Unpublished document). SKE18075.

<2> Historic England, National Heritage List for England (Index). SKE29372.