46 ESSEX AS A WINE-PRODUCING COUNTY.
Much the same reason, rather than any change in climate,
has led to the discontinuance in this county of hop-growing—
once a considerable industry with us. There is not now, I
believe, a single hop-garden in Essex. Yet, twenty years ago,
there were several ; and, at an earlier date, there were many.
Of this, we have abundant evidence in the large number of
fields and meadows in all parts of the county which still bear
the name "the Hop-garden," the "Hop-fieid," or the "Hop-
ground," as reference to Mr. Waller's list of "Essex Field
Names" (already referred to) will show. I myself well re-
member the hop-ground at Tye Hall, Roxwell, the use of which
was discontinued in 1883, and I believe that a hop-garden (the.
last in Essex) continued in use at Castle Hedingham until a
still later date. "The Hop-pole," once a common inn sign,
still lingers at Good Easter, Great Hallingbury, Little Hal-
lingbury, and Roydon.
It can hardly be supposed (hat any change in the climate
during the last twenty, or even the last hundred, years accounts
for the abandonment of hop-growing in Essex. Without doubt,
it is due to improvement in the means of transport, brought about
by the introduction of railroads, which has made the produce
of the more favoured hop-lands of Kent and East-Sussex as
easily obtainable in any part of Essex as that grown in an
adjoining parish was a century ago, and has also put an end to
the practice of home-brewing, which was carried on at every
good farmhouse in Essex up to eighty or a hundred years ago.
Just so it has been with our Essex wine-growing and wine-
making industry. The only difference is that our wine-making
industry was unable to compete with the produce of foreign
countries, while our hop-growing industry was unable to com-
pete with that of other parts of our own country.
There is no evidence, so far as I am aware, to show the date
at which viniculture was abandoned in Essex. It may have
been continued in isolated spots until a comparatively-recent
date. This seems, indeed, to have been certainly the case at
Barking, where a vineyard still existed (according to a record
already cited) as late as 1540. The fact that a vineyard was
attached to Ingatestone Hall, which was only erected in 1565,
renders it probable that viniculture was there carried on still
later. Then, too, we know that Sir William Batten made wine
from grapes at Walthamstow in 1667.