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Many people pass through Hadlow, driving along the A26 from Kings Hill or Maidstone to Tonbridge, without giving it a second glance. But Hadlow has a rich and varied history, dating back to Saxon and Roman times.
Hadlow
Once a hub for hoppers and the brewing industry, Hadlow is now home to a nationally renowned agricultural college and is well worth pausing by to take a closer look.
Situated at the heart of hop-growing country, Hadlow was a centre for brewing in the early 18th century and had working breweries right up to the 1940s. The first malt house is thought to have been built in Hadlow Street in 1710, with a second added in the late 19th century, along Carpenters Lane. Beer was last brewed in Hadlow in September 1949, although malting continued for several years until the brewery finally closed in the late 1960s.
The buildings gradually became derelict through the 1970s and were converted into flats in 1990. A second brewery stood at Style Place, Hadlow. Again, the brewery buildings have been converted to housing and can be seen in Caxton Place.
What to see
It is impossible to pass through Hadlow without spotting the local folly – May’s Tower – climbing skywards from the grounds of Hadlow Castle.
The tower is currently shrouded in scaffolding, but a major restoration project, due to finish later this year, will see the tower returned to its former glory and open to visitors for the first time.
The Vivat Trust, a building preservation trust and national charity, is carrying out the work, and members of the Save
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Hadlow Tower Action Group will manage the tower’s visitor centre, to be built at the base of the folly, which will be open for 28 days each year.
The visitor centre will include an exhibition about the significance of the monument and the personalities and society that produced the building, and the country estate of which it was part, as well as access to the 360-degree viewing platform, 130 feet above the River Bourne and Medway Valleys, with spectacular views across the North Kent Weald.
St Mary’s Church is
more than 1,000 years old. In the churchyard is a memorial to 30 hop- pickers who were drowned in 1858 when the River Medway burst its banks at Hadlow and their cart overturned and fell off the bridge into the floodwater.
New Detached House near Tonbridge - A recent project
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