# 3. Farming in Monkton in 1976/77

The 1970's was still a time when most of the farms and small holdings grew a much larger variety of crops than today. The bigger farms grew cereal crops, mainly wheat and barley with a few oats, there was quite a large acreage of peas in the mid 1970's, some grew fresh peas and others dried. On Sheriffs Court we grew peas for seed. Monkton Court grew fresh and dried a lot of them under contract for Smedly's. Oil seed rape making an appearance toward the end of the 1970's. Potatoes and cauliflowers were a main stay on a lot of the bigger farms. Most farms grew early, main and late potatoes. Although the average winter temperatures in Thanet were probably 5/6 degrees colder than today, the area was still a lot milder than the rest of the country. Earlies would be planted in March and harvested around the second week in June, about 2/3 weeks before other parts of the country, a very profitable crop then. Late potatoes were harvested later in the 1970's than today, the emphasis then being the bigger the potato the heavier the crop. Most of the potato crop was still harvested by hand as harvesters were only just coming into use in the mid 70's, by the early 80's almost all was harvested by machine. Cauliflowers were then cut from October to March, all year-round cauliflowers didn't make an appearance till the mid 80's. Again, with Thanet winters being milder than most of the country in most years ,the frost were not hard enough to freeze the cauliflowers.

In the 1970's it was still a time when small holdings were abundant, especially around Wingham and Preston. In Monkton, Major Hedley's orchard was well looked after by his man Joe Fagg. Clary Daws had his 30 acres opposite the Foxhunter's Park and the Lillott brothers had about 10/12 acres at the top of Sheriffs Court Lane. Most of the small holdings would grow small amounts of a large variety of seasonable vegetables and soft fruit. Clary had a small red van which he would load with his produce and deliver to local greengrocers and hotels in Birchington and Margate a couple of times a week. The Lillotts would have theirs collected, usually by A F Beers. These Beers 10-ton lorries would regularly have to visit a dozen small farms every day before they were fully loaded, all produce loaded and unloaded by hand, then drive over night to the London markets.

Next Month: More on farming in the 1970's.

*Terry Marsh*

Originally published in the Monkton News (November 2024).