We are currently away on another monthly break – this time in East Sussex, a County neither of us have visited before. We are staying in a cottage near to the town of Rye which is called Hop Press Cottage. This is a photo of the exterior
The area we are staying in used to be mainly farms growing hops - as evidenced by the number of Oast Houses seen all around us, most of which have been converted to houses
A few hundred years ago – an Oast house was usually a two story building – of stone or brick and wood, used for drying and bagging hops before delivery to the brewery. At one end of the building the upper floor was for the placement of green hops onto a slatted floor, below which there was a fire sending warm air through the hops to dry them. There was a conical roof above the drying floor surmounted by a hollow rotating exhaust cone which helped to draw the warm air evenly through the hops to dry them. It took about 8 hours at 160 C to do this.
Hopping down in KentWhen the hops were dry they were raked into the upper floor of the second half of the building where they were laid out on the floor to cool. When cool they were raked into the hop press which comprised a vertical rack with a circular platen at its base to push the dry hops into Jute pockets (sacks) which were suspended from the first floor level. The hop press was manually operated by a hand crank via a gear engaging with the rack.
Each sack would contain 1500 litres of dry hops, but much compressed, and weigh about 1.2 cwt (140 lbs). When full they were dropped onto the ground floor where they were stored for delivery to the brewery.
It was not unusual for fires to damage or destroy oast houses when the hops were allowed to dry too much and a fire developed.
Our cottage was no exception some 150 years ago and only half of the original building remains – being the part where the hops were cooled and where the hop press was located. After half the building was lost it was converted to accommodation for hop workers and later converted to a farm and now holiday cottage.
Here are a few random pics of the inside the cottage which has a cosy lounge and the smallest kitchen in the World
These are a few shots of Rye starting with the only remaining gate into what used to be a walled town.
And my wife Libby – an animal lover – stopping to stroke an 8 month old ugly dog
Finally – after a day day of sun and showers we were treated to a violent hail storm this evening. At about 6:00 pm in relatively full sun the heavens opened and it hailed for no more than a minute or two. The noise on the cottage roof and windows was deafening and I was concerned that it would damage the car. For a short while the ground was white over – but the sun soon started to melt it so I ventured outside and took the following pics. The hail stones on the glass roof of the car were roughly 8mm diameter – but no damage is evident.
