The later 19th century: the high point for english hops and oasts

More hops were grown and dried in England in the late 1800s than at any time before or since. Eighty per cent or more of our oasts and hop kilns date from the 19th century. Large and handsome oasts and hop kilns, appropriate to a period of national confidence and wealth, are described in this chapter. Yet worries about the future lurked on the horizon, for example in the proceedings of several parliamentary committees on hops. Time would show that the anxiety was not misplaced. Sir Charles Whitehead, hop farmer and writer on hops for the Journal of the Royal