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Horsmonden
Horsmonden maps
Historic maps of Horsmonden and the local area, hand-drawn by Ordnance Survey and Samuel Lewis. View all Horsmonden maps
Horsmonden area books
Displaying 1 of 24 books about Horsmonden and the local area. View all books for this area
You can read extracts and browse photos from these books.
Memories of Horsmonden
Displaying a selection of personal
memories of Horsmonden.
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Bassetts Farm
I am an American, but back in the autumn of 1971 - during my 18 months of travel around Europe and North Africa - I spent three months working and living at Bassetts Farm, owned by the Pemble family. Thirty-eight years later it remains one of my most wonderful memories. Horsmonden was such a lovely place. At Bassetts Farm I was in charge of the oast house. I had never even heard of an oast house until I arrived there. I had found the job through friends at the New Zealand embassy in London, where they had a list of available jobs. The Pembles also owned another farm several miles away where the crops were apples and pears. When hop season was over, I would drive a tractor each morning from one farm to the other, and at the end of the day I drove it back to Horsmonden. What a beautiful drive that was, through rolling fields of green as the sun was setting. On weekends, we would go to the... Read more
Hop Fields
Horsmonden - the end of my hop picking days. I was born in east London 1939 and hop picking was four weeks in the country, camp fire cooking in the evening, a sing along and down to the Gun or the Town House on Saturday evening. Then came 1960 and I was called up for National Service spending two years away.
I have now retired and acquired a PC. I have found the internet to which I am
new to and found your site. Lots of memories came flooding back and I can
find a use for some spare time. Thank you for a new interest.
Brian
Kent memories
Family Holidays
My grandparents lived in Brenchley for many years, and all our summer holidays in the 1950s and 1960s were spent there. We lived in London so I really looked forward to the summer! My grandparents lived near Castle Hill, and on the last evening of the holiday we all used to go to the Castle pub, my brother and I sat outside and drank lemonade and packets of crisps. Sometimes my father would go and watch the cricket, my grandparents' cottage was opposite the field! My brother and I went back for a visit 2 years ago, we stayed at the Bull, it was like going back in time.
Shop Owner
My husband's great-grandfather was the Rayner on the shop in the photo. We like the name so much that both our eldest son and eldest granddaughter have Rayner as their middle name. We are hoping to keep the tradition going. If anyone knows any more about the Rayners I would be please to know.
Forge Farm
Just found this site while looking for Chinley which I believe is close by.
Forge Farm memories of the fun times we had as children hop picking with nan and gran-dad, dad and mum, aunts and uncles and of course my siblings. At that time the farm supplied student teachers for the children's education, no one went as we were all too busy playing or fishing in the pond in the middle of the common.
Home was a corrugated iron hut, very basic, the bed was made from timber poles with slats laid across. I remember we always took a large cotton mattress case with us and it was our job to fill this with straw supplied by the farmer, if you have never slept on a straw mattress it was always warm. Because there were so many of us the farmer allowed us to take away a section of the joining iron sheet to make two huts into one and put in real glass windows.
Cooking was over... Read more
Cherry Picking
I have great memories of Matfield Green. My mum and dad would pack up all our kit, put it into a large van then we would be taken from Lewes in East Sussex to the cherry orchard in Matfield Green. The cherry orchard was on the Crittenden Road just up from the owner's house which was Mr Thomsett. We had great adventures there and I will never forget them, like swimming naked in Matfield Green pond which had a little island in the middle. My father passed away June just gone so I am going to go to Matfield Green to have another look at the orchard but I know the cherry trees have gone and it's just a field, but I will always remember Mr Charly King driving around the orchard to pick up our picked cherries. The families there were the Arnolds (us), the the Harrises, the Carters and lots more, but I cannot remember them all. There was also Paul the German, and I remember the milkman... Read more
Hop Picking
Paddock Wood, in particular Beltring, the home of the famous Whitebread Oasts, was the centre of the Hop Gardens of Kent.
The Gardens were set out with rows of elevated wire tressles which were supported at intervals by poles.
In the spring, from each hop plant, which was cut back to ground level every year, the shoots were trained up, known as "twiddling". A new hop twine which was tied to a metal hook in the ground up to the overhead wire. There were usually four shoots per plant. By midsummer's day the shoots would reach the wire and flop over the top.
In early September the hops would be ready for picking.
Hop picking in Kent was carried out mainly by London families that came down for a working holiday. Some farms had hop pickers' huts in the Hop Gardens for the use of these families. Some families used to bring their own wallpaper to make it their own "home". Cooking and heating water was carried out on... Read more
