Hop Growing Around Stowupland
In the 2nd half of the last millennium Suffolk, and especially the area around Stowupland and Stowmarket, was considered to be good growing ground for hops. Ena Carter’s notes contain much information about where and when and she also gives her resource texts. Her handwritten essay can be read here…research by Ena Carter on Hop growing around Stowupland. Below can be found more details (taken from SLHG Archives/ ECA Suffolk folder).
Hollingsworth’s A History of Stowmarket (1844)
Hops were first introduced into Suffolk in 1520. Tradionally ‘the first hops ever planted in England were tried out at Dagworth.’
1646 John Hubbard
John Hubbard was a yeoman of Stowupland in his inventory from the time of his death are given ‘certain hoppoles & hayers for Kell £20.00 and certaine hopps for Kells £30.00’.
1769 John Jacob
In the will of John Jacob, Gent who farmed at Dagworth and Old Newton mention is made of his hop-poles worth £300.00
In 1813, Arthur Young in his ‘General View of the Agriculture of Suffolk’ (1813) noted that there were about 200 acres of hops grown in the Stowmarket district ’50 acres were grown in Stowmarket and 10 in Stowupland’.
Charles Freeman of Stowupland Hall noted in his diaries of 1826 & 27 that in addition to the usual fairs, there was a Hop Fair on September 27th & 28th. In July 1825 he gave the prive of hops as £16 per cwt, but the following year this had fallen to £5.
Information from the 1839 tithe maps suggests the acreage of hops in Stowmarket was 35 3⁄4 acres, with 16 acres planted in Stowupland. A field associated with Green Farm (tm 391) is labelled Hop Yard Meadow.
Although the main use of hops was in the brewing industry, in the first half of the 19th century ‘the fruits of hops’ were also used medicinally. It was considered that they contained a ‘volatile oil’ that had a soporific and sedative effect. Mixed with other pharmaceuticals hops were used by Suffolk doctors to treat trigeminal neuralgic, heartburn, dyspepsia, to improve the apetite and for a time to ease the pain of rheumatism. {Stutter’s Casebook. A Junior Hospital Doctor 1839-41 ed E.E. Cockayne & N.J. Stow. published by Suffolk Records Society 2005}
The East Anglian Daily Times mentions hop-picking in 1875, 4, 5, and 1876 -but no further details given.
1879 Thomas Dent
The P.O. Directory names Thomas Dent as a grocer, hop & ale & porter merchant in Stowmarket.
Miss Mary Carter who was born at Green Farm, Stowupland in 1882 remembered being taken as a young child to watch women working in the hop grounds at Bridge Farm, Old Newton. She added that several women went to work there from Stowupland using the footpaths through Green Farm yards.
By the 1900s hops were no longer being farmed in Suffolk.
