Just too expensive, so I imagine in this recession people just weren't going. Last time I went was 5 years ago, took my niece and nephew, family of 4 came to £50 or more (£18 adults, can't remember how much for kids, but probably around £10-£12). That's a huge amount of money to wander around a petting zoo and museum.
Especially when you can go to places like Christmas Tree farm for a few quid.
Godstone Farm is great for kids. Plenty of animals to "pet" & also a large adventure area. Decent prices as well, although haven't been for a few years.
Only live a couple of miles from hopfarm ,shame no more war n peace there as was good show but admit lasts Years was poor? but was handy as could stay till midnight then pop home for real bed,can't see us taking our vehicles to folkstone. But was some other good shows there as well .
Only live a couple of miles from hopfarm ,shame no more war n peace there as was good show but admit lasts Years was poor? but was handy as could stay till midnight then pop home for real bed,can't see us taking our vehicles to folkstone. But was some other good shows there as well .
Only live a couple of miles from hopfarm ,shame no more war n peace there as was good show but admit lasts Years was poor? but was handy as could stay till midnight then pop home for real bed,can't see us taking our vehicles to folkstone. But was some other good shows there as well .
As you said, after last years mud bath, which was one of the reason I didn't go it was fairly obvious something was really wrong with the place. It seemed that they used the War and Peace show as a cash cow to keep the place going for the rest of the year.
Godstone Farm is great for kids. Plenty of animals to "pet" & also a large adventure area. Decent prices as well, although haven't been for a few years.
Spot on. Took my niece there last year and she absolutely loved it, it was very reasonable price-wise and there was tonnes to do.
Godstone Farm is great for kids. Plenty of animals to "pet" & also a large adventure area. Decent prices as well, although haven't been for a few years.
Free kidney failure as well. )
On a serious note - Godstone Farm might well be in serious trouble if the judgement finding them solely responsible for the E Coli outbreak is upheld. They'll surely go under, as the damages will run to million.
We took the kids in the summer to some farm type amusement place near Godstone - managed to get away without contracting anthrax but it was pretty expensive for what is was.....
Godstone Farm is great for kids. Plenty of animals to "pet" & also a large adventure area. Decent prices as well, although haven't been for a few years.
Free kidney failure as well. )
On a serious note - Godstone Farm might well be in serious trouble if the judgement finding them solely responsible for the E Coli outbreak is upheld. They'll surely go under, as the damages will run to million.
Went there with my Dad,ex and daughter,the little girl enjoyed herself but not too much to do.Me and Dad just went to sample the ale!!! Long time ago now!
Godstone Farm is great for kids. Plenty of animals to "pet" & also a large adventure area. Decent prices as well, although haven't been for a few years.
Free kidney failure as well. )
On a serious note - Godstone Farm might well be in serious trouble if the judgement finding them solely responsible for the E Coli outbreak is upheld. They'll surely go under, as the damages will run to million.
Surely they'd be insured for that kind of thing?
I think the crux of the issue is that they knew about the outbreak, but chose not to advise or warn people about it, and took insufficient precautions to deal with it. Not sure insurance covers rank negligence.
my kids love the hop farm, been there loads, they love the magic factory there, the wax museum is pretty naff for most of the models but the george michael in the toilet makes me chuckle. There are quite a few attractions there really which is why the high price, but it's not that bad about £48 i think for a family of 5 plus they do offers in the summer quite a lot, think it closing is a shame, but I have plenty of pictures of memories there.
Only stayed there camping once, in what was advertised as the 'Garden of England Vintage Motor Cycle Rally'. More like the Windsor Chapter of the 59 Club!
I remember when it was Whitbread's hop farm back in the 60s.
My Nan was one of the hand hop pickers who came down for 6 weeks each September for the picking season - as a Cockney girl, it had been in her family for decades.
As a regular, she was one of those allocated their 'own' 2 storey brick 'hop house' (as they were known), with a corrugated tin roof and skylight to light the bedroom upstairs, painted and decorated inside by my uncles, with old furniture. There was no electricity, so lighting was by parraffin lamps - and it was my job as a young lad to fetch water from the standpipe. Each block of hop-houses had their own communal cook house, with big open fireplaces - there was a spit (iron rod) across each one, where you hung your kettle and pot, blackened by the soot of the fire. You had faggots (bunches of branches) delivered by shire horse & cart each morning as fuel for the fire. With their roaring fires, the cook houses were great places for gatherings and singsongs.
There was even a 'street' of shops, built of corrugated iron, where you could buy more or less everything you needed. And the Blue Bell pub was for Saturday nights, 5 minutes walk away across Bell Common.
The picking was hard work in the hop gardens, pulling down the tall bines, with the sack cloth bins on moveable wooden frames. As the bins filled up with picked hops, they were emptied by the bushel (a wicker basket) and sacked up on the cart. You were paid by the bushel.
I loved the strawy smell of the white shire horses, which seemed huge to a small boy. And the smell of the hops, even the sulphur in the oast houses.
The very last year we went, I would have been about 10, I got myself a job helping to deliver the faggots, pitchforking the bundles outside each cookhouse. My Nan would wake me up at 5 o'clock and I would jump up on the cart and get to work, as the dawn broke on another misty September morning.
'Oppin' dahn in Kent? Best days of my life - thank you, Nan.
It seems like another world, Len. It was only, erm .......50 years ago!
I think 1965 was the last year we worked at Beltring - and the handpicking there finished for good, only a couple of years after. It really was the end of an era.
It seemed just about everyone who had a hop-house on Bell Common had been going for years, generation after generation - really colourful characters, many originating from the East End. My Mum's still got old photos passed down to her of family members photographed there from the 1920s onwards.
I remember there was another smaller encampment of single storey corrugated huts near the Maidstone West branch railway line between Beltring and Paddock Wood, known as Tent Common.
Now, I'll say this quietly (and you'll know why) ....... at Beltring Halt just along from the Bell pub, was an old fashioned gated level crossing which a railway chap used to open and shut. He used to let me sit on top of the gates as he opened and closed them, a big treat for a 5 or 6 year old - I can remember the trains there, when they were a small steam engine and a couple of green coaches - the rails would sing before the puffing of the engine was heard, getting louder and louder until it passed with thunderous noise and smoke, before fading away and the total silence afterwards.
There was a small paddock next to the pub with a solitary donkey, which my sister was fascinated with while I was taken to watch the steam trains. And the huge disappointment when we came down another year to find the steam engines gone and the line electrified.
Oggy cheers for posting , you have very special & vivid memories , i know what you mean about steam railways , i love the smell of them , love the one on the Isle Of Wight , must go again in the Summer when its a bit warmer!
Great posts there Oggy. There is still the 'manual' level crossing gate further down the line at Wateringbury.
Shame about the Bluebell pub. It was taken over by a gypsy family then mysterioulsy 'went on fire' within the month. Crying shame to see such a lovely pub in the state it is in now.
Really great post Oggy, my fathers family hail from deepest Lambeth and Camberwell, and although I didn't experience it myself, my fathers side had done. It was common for a mum to usher all the kids (my father was one of 13!!) on to the train at London Bridge without tickets, and simply travel into Kent on packed carriages oblivious to any demands for payment.
On another note from those between war days. Youth clubs such as they were would be organised by scouts, boys brigade, churches and so on, and for fun (for fun!?), the boys would have to run the 'seven bridges', which was starting at the north end of Tower Bridge, and criss crossing the Thames via the next six bridges and side roads, finishing at the south end of Lambeth Bridge.
Shame about bluebell but not many pubs left around that area all gone or are indians. Only one doing well is the harp and only for one reason! Exotic dancers.
Oggy: Beltring Halt as it was and with the crossing gates closed across the lines. Can't see you though, perhaps you'd fallen off! Smashing stories and memories of happy chidhood summers, great stuff.
Comments
Especially when you can go to places like Christmas Tree farm for a few quid.
The Hope Farm just got too expensive.
But was some other good shows there as well .
But was some other good shows there as well .
On a serious note - Godstone Farm might well be in serious trouble if the judgement finding them solely responsible for the E Coli outbreak is upheld. They'll surely go under, as the damages will run to million.
My Nan was one of the hand hop pickers who came down for 6 weeks each September for the picking season - as a Cockney girl, it had been in her family for decades.
As a regular, she was one of those allocated their 'own' 2 storey brick 'hop house' (as they were known), with a corrugated tin roof and skylight to light the bedroom upstairs, painted and decorated inside by my uncles, with old furniture. There was no electricity, so lighting was by parraffin lamps - and it was my job as a young lad to fetch water from the standpipe. Each block of hop-houses had their own communal cook house, with big open fireplaces - there was a spit (iron rod) across each one, where you hung your kettle and pot, blackened by the soot of the fire. You had faggots (bunches of branches) delivered by shire horse & cart each morning as fuel for the fire. With their roaring fires, the cook houses were great places for gatherings and singsongs.
There was even a 'street' of shops, built of corrugated iron, where you could buy more or less everything you needed. And the Blue Bell pub was for Saturday nights, 5 minutes walk away across Bell Common.
The picking was hard work in the hop gardens, pulling down the tall bines, with the sack cloth bins on moveable wooden frames. As the bins filled up with picked hops, they were emptied by the bushel (a wicker basket) and sacked up on the cart. You were paid by the bushel.
I loved the strawy smell of the white shire horses, which seemed huge to a small boy. And the smell of the hops, even the sulphur in the oast houses.
The very last year we went, I would have been about 10, I got myself a job helping to deliver the faggots, pitchforking the bundles outside each cookhouse. My Nan would wake me up at 5 o'clock and I would jump up on the cart and get to work, as the dawn broke on another misty September morning.
'Oppin' dahn in Kent? Best days of my life - thank you, Nan.
Really brings it to life for us youngsters :-)
It seems like another world, Len. It was only, erm .......50 years ago!
I think 1965 was the last year we worked at Beltring - and the handpicking there finished for good, only a couple of years after.
It really was the end of an era.
It seemed just about everyone who had a hop-house on Bell Common had been going for years, generation after generation - really colourful characters, many originating from the East End. My Mum's still got old photos passed down to her of family members photographed there from the 1920s onwards.
I remember there was another smaller encampment of single storey corrugated huts near the Maidstone West branch railway line between Beltring and Paddock Wood, known as Tent Common.
Now, I'll say this quietly (and you'll know why) ....... at Beltring Halt just along from the Bell pub, was an old fashioned gated level crossing which a railway chap used to open and shut. He used to let me sit on top of the gates as he opened and closed them, a big treat for a 5 or 6 year old - I can remember the trains there, when they were a small steam engine and a couple of green coaches - the rails would sing before the puffing of the engine was heard, getting louder and louder until it passed with thunderous noise and smoke, before fading away and the total silence afterwards.
There was a small paddock next to the pub with a solitary donkey, which my sister was fascinated with while I was taken to watch the steam trains.
And the huge disappointment when we came down another year to find the steam engines gone and the line electrified.
Shame about the Bluebell pub. It was taken over by a gypsy family then mysterioulsy 'went on fire' within the month. Crying shame to see such a lovely pub in the state it is in now.
On another note from those between war days. Youth clubs such as they were would be organised by scouts, boys brigade, churches and so on, and for fun (for fun!?), the boys would have to run the 'seven bridges', which was starting at the north end of Tower Bridge, and criss crossing the Thames via the next six bridges and side roads, finishing at the south end of Lambeth Bridge.
Only one doing well is the harp and only for one reason!
Exotic dancers.