SLIDESHOW: Bodiam hops back in time
Bodiam Station relived the hop picking era yesterday (Saturday 9th Sept) at the annual Kent and East Sussex Railway Hop Festival.
The railway played an important part in hop picking at Bodiam as hops were grown along the Rother Valley and at the Guinness Hop Farms at Bodiam. Each year special trains were run to the Kent & East Sussex Railway from London to take the hop-pickers, invariably entire families from the East End, to Kent. The men, women and children would spend several weeks in the countryside each year, picking hops as their holiday.
The Kent & East Sussex Railway is a registered educational charity and is open most weekends and during school holidays until the end of October and again in December for the famous Santa Specials. For more details visit www.kesr.org.uk or call 01580 765155.
The hop festival continues today (Sunday).