What is dried in an oast-house?
Oast house popular in Herefordshire and Worcestershire and came back into fashion in the south east in the later 19th Century. In the 1930s, the cowls were replaced by louvred openings as electric fans and diesel oil ovens were employed. Hops are today dried industrially and the many oast houses on farms have now been converted into dwellings. One of the best preserved oast house complexes is at The Hop Farm Country Park at Beltring. The purpose of an oast is to dry hops. This is achieved by the use of a flow of heated air through the kiln, rather than a
Oast house Millar's Farm oast, Meopham, which was house-converted in 1903 by Sir Philip Waterlow. Other conversions of oasts for non-residential purposes include a theatre (Oast Theatre, Tonbridge, Oast house Theatre Rainham, a Youth Hostel (Capstone Farm, Rochester, another at Lady Margaret Manor, Doddington – now a residential centre for people with learning difficulties), a school (Sturry), a visitor centre (Bough Beech reservoir) offices (Tatlingbury Farm, Five Oak Green and a museum (Kent Museum of Rural Life, Sandling, Preston Street, Faversham, Wye College, Wye and the former Whitbread Hop Farm at Beltring. The National Trust owns an oast at Outridge, near Brasted