The Hop Trade in Southwark

Stephen Humphrey

Introduction Southwark was for centuries associated with hops, breweries and coaching inns. The hop trade was a significant part of The inns derived their existence from the Southwark's commercial past until the fact that Borough High Street and Old early 1970s. Innumerable offices and ware- London Bridge constituted the only land houses of hop factors and hop merchants route into the City from the south until as once existed in the Borough High Street late as 1750. All the road traffic from and adjoining streets, as large-scale Kent, Surrey and Sussex came through Ordnance Survey maps clearly show Southwark. The proprietors of the inns [Fig. 1]. It would be unthinkable to write of were rich and influential, often serving as the area's commercial history without Members of Parliament for the parlia- mentioning this important trade. But mentary borough of Southwark. The whereas many books and articles have best-remembered of these was Harry described the part of local people in hop- Bailey, landlord of the Tabard, who led picking, virtually no attention has been Chaucer's pilgrims in the Canterbury given to the hop trade in Southwark itself. Tales: ‘Befel that in that season on a day / In Southwark at the Tabard, as I lay’. The engraving of 1837 published here The mediaeval route to Canterbury led [Fig. 2] shows the Borough High Street, you from Borough High Street, via Kent Southwark's main street, looking north Street, to the Old Kent Road. Kent Street past St. George the Martyr Church was renamed Tabard Street in 1877. (Dickens's Little Dorrit Church) towards Great Dover Street was what we might the cathedral. At first glance it seems to call a Georgian by-pass. be a normal enough street scene of the day, but a second glance reveals that all The two great breweries of Southwark the vehicles in the view are wagons car- were confusingly both called the Anchor rying hops. In addition, they are emerging Brewery. One was the original Courage's from Great Dover Street on the right, part Brewery, just downstream of Tower of the main road from Kent's hop gar- Bridge, but first owned by John Courage dens, today's A2. in 1787, a century before the bridge

Brewery History Number 123 Summer 2006 5 Figure 1.Mapof thevicinity ofBorough HighStreet in1893. TheHopExchange is attopleft.

6 The Journal of the Brewery History Society Figure 2. Borough High Street, 1837. existed. The other great brewery, in Park breweries in Southwark included Noakes Street near the Borough Market, was & Co. in White's Grounds and Jenner's in much older, going back to the 17th centu- Southwark Bridge Road. ry. In the mid-1700s, Henry Thrale was its owner. He died in 1781, when his friend, Southwark's hops came from Kent. The Dr. Samuel Johnson, made his famous symbol of their origin may be seen in the remark that what was for sale was not ‘a local Hop Exchange: Kent's county arms parcel of boilers and vats but the poten- of a white horse on a red background, tiality of growing rich beyond the dreams repeated endlessly on the galleries of of avarice’. The year before, during the the exchange's hall. Up to the late Gordon Riots, Thrale's manager, John 1960s, many local people went to the Perkins, had plied the rioters with beer Kentish hop gardens each autumn to while sending for the troops, and saved pick the bines. Whole families would stay the day. The buyers in 1781, the there for a hard-working holiday. In the Barclays, made him a partner. The firm far poorer days before the Second World remained Barclay, Perkins & Co. Ltd. until War, the money they earned in Kent pro- it merged with Courage's in 1955. Further vided much-needed extra income.

Brewery History Number 123 Summer 2006 7 When the hops had been picked in the behalf of the growers. They made their autumn, they were traditionally taken to living by charging the growers commis- oast-houses for drying, and then packed sion. In Southwark, the pockets were into what the world might call sacks, but sampled, that is to say, a piece weighing which were known in the trade as pock- about 1 lb. was carefully cut out to act as ets. They typically measured 6 ft. by 2 ft., a sample for potential buyers to inspect. weighed about one and a half hundred- The cutting of a sample was done with a weights and were at one time made of knife more than a foot long, plus a tool jute, but latterly of synthetic materials. called a pair of clams, and a trimming Pockets look rather like the wool sacks gauge. Thick brown paper was folded that you see on mediaeval church round the sample, secured with brass brasses in the Cotswolds. It was these chair-nails. Samples from a particular pockets that were taken to Southwark grower were then strung together with and stored in the hop warehouses. All waxed hemp. All this has always been this was done under the aegis of middle- normal in the hop trade and does not men known as hop factors, who acted on relate just to Southwark's past.

Figure 3. Southwark Street, 1865, the epicentre of the hop trade.

8 The Journal of the Brewery History Society The hop factors had showrooms in 600,000 cwts., and as much as 797,000 Southwark, where the samples were cwts. in 1855. The firm ran a cricket team, once inspected under natural light, of which it was inordinately proud, and despite the inspections being chiefly one advertisement for staff in 1903 needed in February and March, when included the line, 'only cricketers need gloom is plentiful; artificial light was not apply'. The firm's head for some decades used until well into the 20th century. The was Sir Frederick Wigan, one of Victorian buyers in these showrooms were the hop Southwark's merchant princes. He acted merchants, another set of middlemen as Honorary Treasurer of St. Saviour's who acted on behalf of the brewers. The Church when it was being recast as settlement of accounts came in about Southwark Cathedral at the beginning of April. The factors and the merchants the 20th century, and appeared to have may be compared with the brokers and given a great part of the money himself. jobbers in the Stock Exchange in the Numerous substantial fittings in the days of open outcry. They were formed cathedral were provided by him. into partnerships for most of their exis- tence, as in the cases of stockbrokers, Prices of hops in the mid-20th century surveyors and solicitors. were set largely by the Hops Marketing Board, which originated in 1932, follow- Hop warehouses in Southwark could be ing the Agricultural Marketing Act of substantial buildings. The biggest firm of 1931. After the Second World War, the hop merchants, Wigan's, had several board effectively swallowed up the hop warehouses. In 1864, in the newly-laid- factors. Further changes took place in out Southwark Street, the firm commis- that period, too. Warehouses were built sioned R.P. Pope, an architect who had a at Paddock Wood in Kent rather than in thriving local commercial practice, to Southwark to replace those that had build a warehouse at No. 61 capable of been bombed; hop pellets and concen- holding 10,000 pockets and having a trates came into widespread use; and the facility to load and unload four wagons at demand for hops declined by almost half one time under cover. But even more between 1950 and 1980. There was a storage was needed. So in 1868, when a trend away from the aroma hops such as body called the Hop Planters' Joint goldings and fuggles towards the new Stock Company went into liquidation, its high-alpha varieties, which meant that property at No.15 Southwark Street was brewers needed fewer hops, and the bought by Wigan's, and was massively trend for less bitter and more lager had extended towards the Charing Cross the same effect. Exports diminished as railway viaduct [Fig. 4]. This immense countries such as Australia and South warehouse empire came in an era when Africa grew their own hops. Eventually, Excise figures show that the annual crop there was more or less world over- regularly reached between 500,000 and production.

Brewery History Number 123 Summer 2006 9 Figure 4. No. 15, Southwark Street, 1989 (formerly Wigan's).

10 The Journal of the Brewery History Society During the war, no fewer than 25 out of firm of Wolton, Biddell remained in the 37 Southwark hop warehouses were Borough High Street until it merged with destroyed, although none belonging to Wigan's in 1991. Wigan's was lost. Accession to the E.E.C. in 1973 brought in free trade in hops, The Hop Exchange in Southwark Street ending the restrictions on imports, is one great surviving local reminder of especially from Germany. Overnight, it the trade [Figs. 5 & 6]. It is the grandest seemed, the hop merchants packed their Victorian commercial building in bags in Southwark and re-grouped at Southwark and without doubt a great Paddock Wood. In fact, the Hops asset, but ironically it had less to do with Marketing Board and the Brewers' the hop trade than one might think. It was Society had already made a decision to built as a speculation under the name of concentrate the trade's activities at the Hop and Malt Exchange in 1866-67, Paddock Wood, adding to the warehous- and was designed by R.H. Moore. It was ing already there. A fragment of the trade intended to comprise an ornate trading survived locally for a few more years. The floor and surrounding offices. But the hop

Figure 5. Hop Exchange, Southwark Street, 1983.

Brewery History Number 123 Summer 2006 11 Figure 6. Hop Exchange, Southwark Street, 1867.

12 The Journal of the Brewery History Society factors and hop merchants all had their own premises, and did not need an exchange. Consequently, the building was divided up for general office use and for long was known as Central Buildings. The old name has been revived in recent years. Some hop firms and associated trade organisations did rent offices in the building, but most of the occupiers repre- sented other lines of business. The exchange suffered a fire on October 20th, 1920, which destroyed the original two upper storeys. The present building is still very impressive, but the original was far grander, looking faintly like the Colosseum. The great doorway is deco- rated with reminders of the trade. Just across the road, in Borough High Street, the former premises of W.H. & H. Le May (No. 67) still bear their name and the words, 'hop factors', as well as carvings of hops [Fig. 7]. On the wall of the pub at No. 32 (opposite), there is a finely- inscribed memorial signed by Omar Ramsden, commemorating the mem- bers of the hop trade who fell in the First World War. The several surviving ware- houses in Southwark have been convert- ed into other uses, most notably the great ranges in the yard called Maidstone Buildings, whose very name recalls the source of this once-major local trade. Figure 7. W.H. & H. May, 2006.

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