Maidstone turnpike were no hops grown. Whitehead apart, the largest growers were Henry Thorpe, with seven acres at Lower Pettings, James Lance, with six and a half-acres at Old House and North Ash, Samuel Tiesdell, with a similar area at West Yoke, Joseph Oliver, whose five acres were divided between Oliver’s Farm and his piece of ground in North Ash road, John Middleton, with four and a half acres at Turner’s Farm and Miss Hodsoll, with three and a half acres on her little farm at West Yoke.
   Of the smaller growers, Mrs Clark had two and a half acres, divided between her land in the Ash Street area and Horns Lodge, and Michael Fletcher a similar area on Rands House Farm. Joseph Holmes, in the area of Hodsoll Street, one Paris, by Stansted Lane, and James Leach, by Rosemary Lane, each grew two acres. John Rogers, at Attwood Place, Mrs Porter, at Johnson’s Farm or nearby, John Jeal, at the Haven, and Thomas Wellard, of Upper Gooses, each had one and a half acres and John Leach, at Down House, and Charles Hodsoll, at South Ash Farm, each one acre. In all, there were twenty-two hop growers in the parish.
   At that time, hop-growing was on the upgrade in Ash, as indeed elsewhere. In the next forty-odd years the 

area of hop ground in the parish was exactly to double and that rapid growth was to continue. It was not until 1878 that hop-growing in both Kent and the country at large reached its peak. Thereafter, for reasons various, the acreage declined and the industry became much more concentrated in those areas where soil and climate were most suitable; correspondingly, the average yield per acre increased and, eventually, doubled. A modest quota of hops is still grown in the surrounding area, but by the middle of the present century the hop gardens of Ash belonged wholly to the past.
   Although fruit had long been grown in Kent, especially in the fertile belt south. of the Thames estuary and, to some extent, in the valleys of the Darent and the Cray, fruit-growing in the county did not begin to blossom into a major industry until early in the nineteenth century. Then the Napoleonic Wars, the imposition thereafter of tariff restrictions on imported fruit, the decline in the price of sugar and, above all, the great increase in population and consequential demand, especially from the nearby London market, all contributed to a great upsurge