The Mysterious Mr Golding
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The mysterious Mr Golding Martyn Cornell Considering what a huge impact he had but we can have a stab at guessing when on the taste of British beer, astonishingly Mr Golding spotted his ‘hill of extraordi- little is known about the man who gave nary quality.’ A very good hop plant his name to the Goldings hop. might produce upwards of 100 rhizome or root cuttings suitable for planting out About all we do have comes from a book the following year. But each newly plant- published in 1798 with the marvellously ed cutting will need to grow for a couple long title of The Rural Economy of the of years before it can supply cuttings Southern Counties: Comprizing Kent, itself (and also grow saleable hops). Surrey, Sussex, The Isle of White, the Chalk Hills of Wiltshire, Hampshire etc, Mr Golding must surely have set himself and including the Culture and up with a good stock of his new hop plant Management of Hops in the Districts of before he started giving it away to neigh- Maidstone, Canterbury and Farnham. It bours, and an acre of hop garden is was written by William Marshall, which going to require more than 3,500 hop says (on p. 183), talking about hop vari- plants. Let's guess at each new plant eties in the District of Maidstone: producing 75 viable cuttings, this means an absolute minimum of four years In West Kent there are several varieties in before the generous Mr G starts letting cultivation. The 'Canterbury' is the favorite his neighbours share his bounty, six sort and is the most cultivated: it is a 'white years since the discovery of the new bine' hop, of the middle size. The 'Golding' super-hop before they get any sellable has, of late years, been in high repute. It is a hops, and eight to ten years, at least, sub-variety, I understand, of the Canterbury; before there is a sufficient acreage of Mr which was raised by a man still living (1790) Golding's hops growing for it to have the Mr Golding, of the Malling quarter of the dis- ‘high repute’ that Marshall refers to. trict; who observing, in his grounds, a hill of extraordinary quality and productiveness, So if, as Marshall says, he heard about marked it, propagated it, and furnished his Mr Golding's marvellous hop of ‘high neighbours with cuttings, from its produce. repute:’ in 1790, when the gentleman was still alive, the plant could not have This doesn't give us a lot of information, been first spotted any later than Brewery History Number 127 27 1779/1780, and probably not much later several Williams among the Plaxtol than 1775, or 15 years earlier. For com- Goldings. One of Plaxtol's pubs, a former parison, the hop that was later named the beerhouse, has been called the Golding Fuggle grew from a seed supposedly Hop since at least the 1890s, and the vil- thrown out with the crumbs from a hop- lage also has Golding Hop Farm, while picker's dinner basket in 1861, and did Plaxtol parish council claims that the local not enter commercial use until around Garrett Memorial Land, amenity space 1875, 14 years on.1 ‘contains rare varieties of apples and pears, and rootstock of the original well- We can safely say, then, given that it was known Golding Hop (developed for com- at least six years on from the plant's dis- mercial growing by William Golding, a for- covery, which was no later than the mer Plaxtol resident).’2 1770s, before it could have been produc- ing viable crops in other people's hop Ignoring the fact that hop rootstock only gardens, that the Golding hop began to lives 25 to 30 years, so that whatever is be grown commercially in or before the growing on the Garrett Memorial Land 1780s. can't be the ‘original’ Golding hop, and the usual problem of, apparently, no But where was the Golding hop first dis- documentary evidence to back the parish covered? Marshall says it was ‘in the up, the main problem with Plaxtol's claim Malling quarter,’ that is, around East and to be the place where Golding hops first West (then called Town) Malling. grew is that the village isn't in ‘the Malling Unfortunately. Mid-Kent was (and indeed quarter,’ where Marshall said Mr Golding still is) on of the main centres of the sur- came from, but six or so miles from the name Golding and there are several pos- Mallings, in Wrotham parish and closer to sible candidates for the ‘Mr Golding’ who Sevenoaks and Tonbridge. found the hop. (Incidentally, the ‘Mr’ is significant, indicating, given the usage of The Malling district certainly had a heavy the time, that the person in question was crop of Goldings at the end of the 18th a member of the minor gentry, one step century. One was Mr Oliver Golding, of up from a simple yeoman farmer, though Fartherwell House, Ryarsh, just north of perhaps not quite elevated to be called West (or Town) Malling. described in The ‘esq,’ or esquire.) Times in 1790 as ‘universally known and esteemed throughout the whole county of In Plaxtol, near Sevenoaks, they have no Kent.’ Oliver was in the newspaper doubts who the discoverer was: even in because he had lost a winning lottery 1870 there had been Goldings farming in ticket, worth nearly £800 - equal to per- the village for ‘several generations,’ and haps £250,000 today - in a parcel that fell villagers name ‘William Golding’ as the from a stage coach returning to Kent from farmer who found the hop: there were London. Amazingly, eight months after 28 Journal of the Brewery History Society the parcel was lost, the ticket turned up, heads and front paws up, on a white or and Golding received his money. There is silver background), left Ditton Court to his no evidence, however, to link lucky Oliver nephew, another Thomas, John senior's with the eponymous hop, even though father, who seems to have sold it, and someone who had been so generous as then bought it back again around 1735.5 to give his neighbours cuttings of such an John Golding junior was born around extraordinary plant would surely have 1769, which makes him too young to been ‘esteemed throughout the whole have been the Mr Golding who discov- county.’3 ered the hop.6 But his father, who died some time before 1811,7 is certainly the A far likelier candidate is John Golding right age, in the right place, and with the senior of Ditton Court, Ditton, just north of opportunity. He would have known all the East Malling. John must have grown neighbouring hop growers, too, well hops: when his son John junior was enough to exchange information - and assessed for tithes (church taxes) in cuttings - with them all: Pigot's Trade 1841 he owned four hop gardens in and Directory for 1840 records for Town (or around the village totalling more than 36 West) Malling: acres, as well as a ‘yard and hopper's house.‘4 John senior's great-uncle The hop planter and factors around this Thomas Golding, sheriff of Kent in 1703, neighbourhood meet in Town Malling at the was living in Leybourne, near West August fair, agreeably to long established Malling when he bought Ditton Court custom, with the view to ascertaining the around the start of the 18th century. probable production of the hop harvest; they Leybourne itself was famous for its hops: wager on the amount of duty that they antici- The History and Topographical Survey of pate by which they calculate the price likely to the County of Kent in 1798 recorded that be the standard. As an instance of the fertility of the soil of this The Golding hop receives another men- parish for the hop-plant, a cottager who lived tion in 1799, when John Banister of in Sir Henry Hawley's rents in it, had half an Horton Kirby in Kent, in a book called acre of land belonging to his cottage, which in Synopsis of Husbandry, records among the year 1784 produced a crop of forty-five the various types of hop ‘the Flemish, the hundred of hops, which he sold for one hun- Canterbury, the Goldings, the Farnham dred and forty-five pounds, an extraordinary etc.’ Another well-known type was the crop, and a fortune to the poor man. grape hop, and a report in The Times from May 23rd 1822, speaking about the Thomas, whose arms were ‘argent, a poor state of the hop gardens around cross voided between four lions passant, Maidstone, says: ‘The grape bine is still guardant gules’ (a red hollow cross very yellow … With reference to the between four lions lying down with their Golding and Canterbury plant, about one Brewery History Number 127 29 hill in five are dead, and not one hill in ten hop reckoned that a third of all the has the appearance of a sufficiency of acreage given over to hops in East Kent bine to furnish each pole,’ suggesting that were Goldings.8 The rich loamy soil of Canterbury and Golding may have been East Kent has been recognised for more regarded still as effectively synonymous. than a century and a half for producing the best Goldings hops, just as the Loire Later reports emphasise the superiority valley produces some of the world's best of the Golding: a hop market report from Sauvignon Blanc wines and Java some The Times on December 8th 1845 shows of the best coffees: ironically, the Mallings new Sussex hops at up to £7:10 shillings (and indeed Plaxtol) are in Mid Kent.