Orwell’s Hop-Picking Haunts 2026

In August and September 1931 George Orwell, in his guise as a tramp, went hop-picking in Kent, keeping a diary as he went. In July 2026 members of the Orwell Society followed George Orwell’s Hop-Picking Diary, using the paths identified by Neil Smith, to explore Kent in Orwell’s footsteps.

With photographs taken by Barry Page.

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‘Orwell’s hop-picking diary, first published in 1968, is full of detail that can be used to work out, with some certainty, where he went.’ (Neil Smith, ‘Orwell in Kent’)

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‘As it was getting on in the afternoon we decided to make not for Sevenoaks but for Ide Hill spike, which the Scotchmen had told us was better than it is usually represented. We halted about a mile from the spike for tea, and I remember that a gentleman in a car nearby helped us in the kindest manner to find wood for our fire, and gave us a cigarette each. Then we went on to the spike, and on the way picked a bunch of honeysuckle to give to the Tramp Major.’ (29 August 1931)

The former Ide Hill Spike

‘… they set out for the hop fields, walking at least 15 miles to Ide Hill near Sevenoaks. Orwell and Ginger decided not to stay in the spike but kip “on the edge of a park near the church” (CWGO X: 218). On their way there they tap[ped] sausages from the local butcher, now identified as a Mr Underwood who lived in a large property, Prospect House, adjoining the shop. The shop is now the garage of the house. A current local resident of Ide Hill, Mrs Leigh (then Freda Cole), remembers moving to Prospect House in 1934 and says that tramps often used to come to the front gate so her family could fill their drums.’ (Neil Smith, ‘Orwell in Kent’)

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‘Ginger and I went and kipped on the edge of a park near the church. It was beastly cold, but a little better than the night before, for we had plenty of wood and could make a fire. For our supper, Ginger tapped the local butcher, who gave us the best part of two pounds of sausages. Butchers are always very generous on Saturday nights… Next morning the clergyman coming to early service caught us and turned us out, though not very disagreeably.’ (29th – 30th August 1931)

The Church Yard at Ide Hill. Here Eric Blair and Ginger the tramp rough camped on the way to Mereworth until the vicar made them leave

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‘We cannot be certain which of Frank Blest’s farms Orwell worked at. However, Blest family recollection suggests it may have been Brewers Hall Farm, Mereworth, a village between Sevenoaks and Maidstone. This fits the geography described in Orwell’s diary which describes Blest’s as 3 miles from West Malling Spike (where he had stayed the night before) and 2½ miles from Wateringbury railway station (from where he took the hop-pickers’ train back to London). He also describes washing his shirt and socks in a stream – Wateringbury Stream runs through Brewers Hall Farm.’ (Neil Smith, ‘Orwell in Kent’)

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‘On Sundays we used to wash our shirts and socks in the stream, and sleep the rest of the day. As far as I remember I never undressed completely all the time we were down there, nor washed my teeth, and I only shaved twice a week. Between working and getting meals (and that meant fetching everlasting cans of water, struggling with wet faggots, frying in tin-lids etc.) one seemed to have not an instant spare.’

The place where Orwell washed his socks

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‘One day at hop-picking was very much like another. At about a quarter to six in the morning we crawled out of the straw, put on our coats and boots (we slept in everything else) and went out to get a fire going – rather a job this September, when it rained all the time.’

Fields near Mereworth

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OS Chair Quentin Kopp reading from George Orwell’s diary

‘Ginger and I packed our things and walked over to Wateringbury to catch the hop-pickers’ train… At about 10 at night the hop-pickers poured out at London Bridge station, a number of them drunk and all carrying bunches of hops; people in the street readily bought these bunches of hops, I don’t know why.’ (19 September 1931)

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Where hops grew in 1931 now grapes are grown (2026)

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Orwell used his experience to write ‘Hop-Picking’, an article which appeared in the New Statesman on 17th October 1931, and in his novel A Clergyman’s Daughter (1935)

‘Orwell in Kent’ by Neil Smith, Orwell Society Journal, Number 18, Spring 2021

‘Retracing the Steps of Orwell and Dorothy Hare in Kent’ by Neil Smith, George Orwell Studies, Volume 6 Number 2, 2022

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Our thanks to Barry Page, Neil Smith, and Masha Karp.

George Orwell’s hop-picking diary is online thanks to the Orwell Prize.