Whitbread brewery had a close connection with Kent. One of the best known of these connections was the Whitbread Hop Farm at Beltring, just outside Paddock Wood, situated on a 400-acre (1.6 km2) site and housing the largest collection of oast houses in the world.

The Hop Farm remains one of the most famous and recognisable features of Kent and records show that the farm site itself is over 450 years old. Hops were first introduced into England from Flanders at the end of the 15th century and were grown on the Beltring site from the mid-16th century. Not only did Kent have ideal soil for growing hops but there was plenty of wood to produce charcoal for drying the hops. For many years the site was owned and managed by the Cheesman family but in the 1880s the farm passed into the joint ownership of E A White and the Draper’s Livery Company. The site was then fully developed with the distinctive oasts we see today.

The site contains five groups of oasts (known as Bells after Bell Field on which the buildings were built). Bells 1, 2, 3 and 4 are at right angles to the A228 whilst Bell 5 is slightly further back and is sideways on to the road. All of these Bells are Grade II* listed.

When Whitbread and Company Ltd bought the hop farm in 1920 it continued as a working farm, using the existing buildings. Bells 1 to 4 were constructed in the early 1900s, with five circular kilns or roundels with roofs of hand-made clay peg tiles. Bell 5 was added in 1936; it was more modern with 5 internal kilns and cowls on the roof.

During the heyday of hop picking, some 4,000 hop pickers (adults and children) were employed on the farm every season. Thousands of hop pickers would come down from London on special trains to Paddock Wood and Beltring. This was their annual summer holiday and many of the families came every year. The hops were picked by hand into bins and transferred to the oast houses for drying. At its peak, 200 acres of hops were dried at the farm every year.

After the second world war the hop industry gradually mechanised and the Whitbread Hop Farm eventually became the last strongholdof large-scale, good old-fashioned hand picking of hops in Kent. But this had to end and 1968 saw the last season of hop picking by hand. Coincidentally, in late September 1968 severe flooding damaged the on-site hop pickers’ dwellings beyond repair. The huts were demolished and all picking was then done by machine.

Mechanisation meant that there was less call for drying traditionally. Bell 1 was last used in 1946 and Bell 5 ceased to operate in 1973. Bell 4 was abandoned in 1980 as were Bells 2 and 3 in 1984. But Whitbread had long been aware of the site’s potential as a tourist attraction and in 1982 the farm was opened up to visitors as a tourist and education centre together with a museum dedicated to the hopping industry. It also had a large collection of shire horses. The famous London-based Whitbread shires (who amongst other duties pulled the Lord Mayor’s coach through the streets of London on ceremonial occasions and also pulled the Speaker’s coach at the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953) spent their summer holidays at Beltring. It was a wonderful sight to see these giant drayhorses emerge from the boxes which had transported them down from London literally leaping and prancing around like young colts.

In 1997 Whitbread sold the hop farm and it was developed into a commercialised family entertainment park known as the Hop Farm Family Park mostly aimed at children. An on-site Hop Story Museum still depicted what life was like as a hop picker and future generations could still enjoy learning about hop picking.

In 2006, The Hop Farm Family Park was sold to Kent Attractions Ltd and then in 2007 it was again sold. In 2012, the Hop Farm underwent a radical restructure in an effort to halt a five-year slide in visitor numbers, however in 2013 Hop Farm Trading Ltd went into liquidation blaming decreasing numbers of visitors as well as continued bad weather. It was also announced in December that one of its biggest annual events, War and Peace was moving to Folkestone.

The Hop Farm Family Park finally closed in 2023 and at the time of writing (2026) there are no plans to re-open it. The owners are apparently focussing on other areas of the business including the Hop Farm Touring and Camping Park which includes a camp site and sites for static caravans. They also hire out the land for events such as boot fairs, circuses and the Wealden Times Midwinter Fair. Other businesses have been recruited to operate out of the buildings. This includes “Shires Oast” a Wedding and Event venue which opened in 2024.

For those of us who remember the Whitbread hop farm as a working farm and then as a thriving tourist attraction, we look back sadly on the day when Whitbread sold the business. The museum continued for some years and Heritage Paddock Wood has a long list of agricultural items which were donated by local residents and housed in the original museum.

No one appears to know what happened to all these items which were donated with love and pride. If anyone has any information about their fate please let us know via our website or Facebook.

Adapted by Meryl Flashman of Heritage Paddock Wood from an article originally written by her husband, John.

The Former Whitbread Hop Farm at Beltring