TQ8028 : Oast House at Hoads Farm, Crouch Lane, Sandhurst, Kent
taken 15 years ago, near to Linkhill, Kent, England
A group of traditional brick and modern portal framed, corrugated barns surrounding a brick building, form a modern style hop processing 'oast house'.
The original oast house was a two round kiln building. The kilns were demolished and replaced with a modern ridge ventilated building around the 1960s. A larger further ridge ventilated barn was added later.
The ridge ventilated barn caught fire on 29th September 2015 just at the end of the hop picking season.
An Oast House is a building used to dry fresh hops before they are sent to the brewers, to be used for flavouring beer. A traditional Oast House consists of the 'oast' and the 'stowage'. The oast was a kiln, with a plenum chamber fired by charcoal at ground floor and the drying floor directly above. The steep pitched roof channelled the hot air through the hops to the top. The stowage, was the barn section, it had a cooling floor and press at first floor and storage area at ground floor. Read more Link