We have been busy with ponds over the past month. We went back to the Marlpit area on Rusthall to complete the excavation of the second Marlpit pond site, which we couldn’t finish before the start of the amphibian spawning season last Spring because of the weather.

The excavations were finished just in time to be filled by the heavy rain at the end of October and we now have three new ponds and the small pond above the little path from Common View has been enlarged. This small pond has been full of frogspawn in the last two years since it was created, so I hope they will appreciate all the extra space next Spring. I hope very much to be able to install a flight of steps on the steep slope that comes from the woodland to the little causeway behind the new ponds, it can get very slippery in the Winter. This whole project has been jointly funded by the Friends of the Commons and the Freehold Tenants.

Earlier this year, the Friends helped us get a grant from the Sussex Lund Organisation to create a series of shallow scrapes and a wet, boggy area below the rocks at Bulls Hollow. A large beech tree came down in the bottom of the Hollow a few years ago flooding the area with light and creating an ideal position for a new pond. Because it is the bottom of an old, sandstone quarry, we had to introduce a heavy duty liner to make the site hold water but we now have a range of aquatic habitats that should attract far more diversity into this already fascinating area. As with the Marlpits, I am looking forward to seeing them green up but I am advised by the experts to wait until early Spring before we sow with a pond-edge grass and wildflower seed mix.

I am delighted that I have been able to persuade our longest serving contractor, Mick Dann to return to the Common for a last time to clear Happy Valley. Mick has been working on the Commons longer than I have but has not been able to be with us for the last two years. Happy Valley did not get a proper clearance last year with the unending rain that we were enduring, so I am very pleased that the maestro will  be back to beautify it for one last time. Happy Valley is one of my favourite parts of the Commons and a lot of work has been carried out there in recent years to open it up, although without animals to graze it as they historically did, getting it back to it’s former glory is an almost impossible task.

The second lockdown has brought lots of people back to the Commons, just when we thought everything was starting to quieten down. In the sunshine of the last few days, it seemed that every bench around the cricket pitch was occupied. Everyone is behaving sensibly and it is lovely to see the Commons being enjoyed, especially with them looking so fabulous at the moment. However, it has lead to overflowing bins again at times. So enjoy your visits but we would once again ask you to take your litter home with you, we are struggling to cope at times.

Steve Budden- Commons Warden

Oast houses are of course a distinctive feature of the Kent and Sussex landscape.  They are also found, to a lesser degree, in Surrey, Hampshire, Herefordshire and Worcestershire.  They were constructed originally to dry the harvested mature hops for use as an ingredient in brewing beer but nowadays hops are dried in modern ridge ventilated buildings and only a very few working oasts remain, one example being at Little Scotney Farm, Lamberhurst, on the Scotney Castle estate which is owned by the National Trust.

The word ‘oast’ itself seems to derive originally from the Latin word ‘aestus’ meaning ‘burning heat’.  In Anglo-Saxon times the word ‘ast’ meant any sort of kiln but by the 16^th century the term ‘ost’ (or alternatively  ‘oste’, ‘oost’ or ‘oust’) was used to refer to a kiln used to dry either malt or hops, the latter having been introduced into England in the mid 16^th century.  But by the 19^th century ‘oast’ had become universally adopted as referring specifically to a kiln used to dry hops.  However, the Kentish dialect word ‘kell’ also was used for kilns as in “the oast has three kells” and sometimes to mean the oast itself.

Records show that the first form of oast house appeared around the latter part of the 1500s, with the increasing use of hops as a profitable crop.  It was not however until the mid 1700’s that hop production took off and oast houses came to be built in greater numbers.   By the mid 1800’s it was in full production and many of the oast houses that can be seen today originated from that time.  Over 5,000 oast houses were constructed in that era, with 3000 in Kent alone.

Early oast houses were no more than adapted barns but, by the 18th century, the distinctive tall buildings with conical roofs had been developed to increase the draught.  At first these were square but around 1800 roundel kilns were developed in the belief that they were more efficient.  Square kilns remained more popular in Herefordshire and Worcestershire and came back into fashion in the south east in the later 19th century.  In the 1930s, the cowls were replaced by louvred openings as electric fans and diesel oil ovens were employed.

The earliest surviving purpose built oast house in Kent appears to be the Grade II listed Godwin House oast at Little Golford, near Cranbrook.  Thought to have been built around 1740 it is a small timber framed building with one kiln and a single cowl in the ridge of the hipped tile roof.  It is perhaps worth mentioning that Cranbrook and the neighbouring parishes of Sissinghurst and Benenden have most of the oldest Kent oast houses built from the mid-1700s.

A summary of how oast houses were traditionally used can be seen in the 1926 edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica:  “After being picked, the hops are taken in pokes – long sacks holding ten bushels – to the oasts to be dried.  The oasts are circular or square kilns, or groups of kilns, wherein the green hops are laid upon floors covered with horsehair, under which are enclosed or open stoves or furnaces.  The heat from these is evenly distributed among the hops above by draughts below and around them.  The hops are from nine to ten hours drying, after which they are taken off the kiln and allowed to cool somewhat, and are then packed tightly into ‘pockets’ 6 feet long and 2 feet wide, weighing 1.5 hundredweight, by means of a hop pressing machine which has cogs and wheels worked by hand.”  In passing it should be noted that by using this traditional kiln method the moisture content of the hops was reduced from 80% to the required level of 10%.  An additional point to make is that the drying floors were deliberately thin and perforated in order to permit the heat to pass through and escape through a cowl in the roof which turned with the wind.   

Inevitably with the passage of time the hop-picking process became modernised and from the 1960s onwards many oast houses fell into disuse.  Some were demolished, some became used for storage of fruit and farm machinery and some were left simply to decay.  However, in the 1970s, and the 1980s in particular, the demand for increased housing meant that the conversion of oasts to homes in the south east became widespread.  Stylish residences, often with round reception rooms, became a desirable feature of the property market.  The older oasts often became listed buildings and whilst most internal fixtures and structures disappeared the typical external format of oast, kiln and cowl has been widely preserved.

One of the best preserved oast house complexes is at the Hop Farm Country Park at Beltring, just outside Paddock Wood.  Part of this complex was Brookers Oast which was built in the mid-1800s and was last used for drying hops in 1948.  In 1982 when the hop farm was opened as a tourist and education facility, Brookers Oast became a working craft centre.  In 1991 it was fully converted into a bar and restaurant.  When the entire hop farm tourist complex was offered for sale in 1997, Brookers Oast was not included and remains part of the Brewers Fayre restaurant chain.

Other conversions of oasts for non-residential purposes include theatres at Tonbridge and Rainham; a visitor centre at Ide Hill; Bower Grove School, Maidstone; Steiner School, Canterbury; a health centre at Barming; a Christian Retreat Centre at Northiam; and the Museum of Kent Life at Sandling to name but a few.

^{Acknowledgements to Meryl Flashman; Carol Prier; Robin and Ivan Walton}

Their all-male troupe are heading to Tonbridge on Tuesday 6th August for a bicycle-powered production of Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing like no other. In usual Handlebards style, audiences can expect riotous amounts of energy, a fair old whack of chaos, and a great deal of laughter.
★ ★ ★ ★ “Gloriously eccentric and very, very funny.” The Stage

And what’s the play about? Well – a group of soldiers return from the war to a household in Messina, causing the kindling of new love interests and the re-kindling of old rivalries. The parallel love stories of Beatrice, Benedick, Claudio and Hero become entangled with plotting, frivolity and melodrama in Shakespeare’s famous comedy.

This is an outdoor production in the Library Gardens at Tonbridge School, so audiences should bring their own chair or blanket to sit on, a picnic to dig into, and dress for the weather!

Tuesday 6th August 6.30pm Library Gardens, Tonbridge School Tickets £17 in advance, £19 on the day, U18’s £11, U10’s free www.emftheatre.com 01732 304241

Notes on the company:

The company began life in 2013 as a group of entrepreneurial friends with a shared passion for sustainability and traveling theatre. Since then they have cycled over 8,200 miles across the whole of the UK, performing to over 70,000 people in castles, gardens, museums, bicycle yards and public amphitheaters. This summer they will breach 10,000 miles with an all-male production of Much Ado About Nothing and an all-female production of The Tempest. The cast consists of only four actors, which results in fast-paced multi-rolling that gives The HandleBards their unique brand of irreverent and family-friendly comedy. www.handlebards.com

We have finally been able to complete the drainage improvements over at Sunnyside Rd on Rusthall Common. The old pond there has been re-excavated and the spoil used to build up the bund behind the outflow to stop flooding during very heavy rain. We also installed a pierced liner under the soil to hold back water and create a little wetland area. This has just been seeded with pond edge plants like meadowsweet, hemp agrimony and marsh marigold. With a little luck it will look very nice this time next year and it will provide a valuable extra habitat in the area.

On the other side of Lower Green Rd, we are still having serious problems with waterlogging. The area in the centre of the grass is far too wet to mow and is causing us real difficulties. Water has been bubbling through the road surface at the crossroads for many years but the whole situation has worsened since last year’s attempt by Highways to resolve it. As part of that scheme it seems, they diverted the flow onto the Common, Happily, another attempt to solve the problem is imminent and hopefully this time it will succeed.

For some reason, we always seem to have problems during the Easter holidays and this year was no exception. The poor old Cricket Club had their pavilion vandalised again and branches were ripped down to feed large fires at Wellington Rocks. The worst aspect of this for us is the huge amount of broken glass from smashed bottles left behind, especially as the Rocks are such a magnet for small children and so many dogs are taken there first thing in the morning. We do our utmost to clear this as soon as possible but it really is a terrible problem. Although at slightly lower levels than at Easter, this behaviour continues throughout the Summer in spite of the area having been scheduled as an Alcohol Control Zone some years ago. In fairness to the Police,
the enforcement of this is very difficult, especially at night.

Steve Budden – Commons Warden

All this means that we will have to bring our tree cutting and clearance to an end, but the relatively dry and mild Winter meant we have been able to complete our planned works in time. We have carried out remedial works and reductions on a number of roadside trees and removed quite a number as well, mostly old, ivy covered hawthorns but also some mature trees that had gone beyond reasonable repair.

Over on Rusthall Common we completed the works held over from last Winter by dredging and re-sealing the pond next to the Tarry Path and we also installed the culverts under the new path near the Marlpit Pond and created a couple of new shallow ponds there. All these ponds have filled successfully over the Winter and will hopefully be providing new homes for some of our amphibians by the time you read this.

On Tunbridge Wells Common, the clearance extending the glade by the Bat Cave has been finished and the volunteers have removed scrub between the Racecourse and the Victoria Grove, adjacent to the path coming up from the Pantiles to create another new glade there. After the volunteers had finished the cutting, our contractors grubbed out the stumps, landscaped both sites and sowed them with our restoration seed mix. The conditions for germination are excellent at the moment, so hopefully it will not be long before these areas start to green up.

The one thing we have not been able to do yet is the planned improvements to drainage at Sunnyside Rd. The ground is still too wet there for us to put heavy machinery on it without seriously damaging the grass. In a few weeks however, we should be able to landscape the area around the drain at the end of the stream to prevent it overflowing and flooding during heavy rain. As the ground dries, we will also be starting on the grass cutting. It is nice when we can make an early start on the grass, it enables us to get a good standard of finish early in the season.

Steve Budden – Commons warden