Swiss Cottage (Thatched House) becomes hospital (1903)

Post date: Jan 27, 2012 2:42:32 PM

Wateringbury Parish magazine of October 1903 reported within its annual report on the hopping the following.

We have reserved to the last a notice of a most important extension this year of our mission work. By the kindness of Mr. R. H. Fremlin the Little Hoppers' Hospital which of late years has been located at Mereworth was transferred to the cottage and stables attached to the Swiss Cottage.

The Rev. J. E. Revington Jones, who first started the hospital, lent us all his plant, which kind friends supplemented by gifts and loans, Mrs. Gator giving two new mattresses and the Guardians of Coxheath Union making agrant of six iron bedsteads. Miss Hatchard worked hard in helping the Vicar to get the place ready for the reception of the patients and the nursing staff, and Drs. Southwell-Sanders and Black gave the medical attendance. The staff consisted of "Sister" K. Kerr, Nurse Hewlett, and Miss L. Pine-Coffin,- ''Cook-general." It is impossible to rate too highly the splendid work of these ladies, who, it may be well to say, gave their services to the cause, their board and out-of-pocket expenses being defrayed by the H. M. Committee.

There were 10 in-patients and 288 attendances in the out-patients' department; and two or three urgent calls to the huts in the gardens were responded to—but hut-work is not supposed to come within the scope of the hospital staff. One little baby died two days after admission to the hospital; there were two bad cases of pneumonia, both children, and in both cases probably life was saved; a case of severe burning; one of rheumatic fever; one of heart failure and dropsy; one-of bronchitis; and three cases which proved to be of comparatively slight nature. Four of the cases came from Teston, two from Wateringbury, and one each from Barming, Mereworth, Yalding (Bow Hill) and West Farleigh. Thus the removal of the hospital from Mereworth to Wateringbury, as being a more central position, seems to have been justified, and we hope it may become a permanent institution.

The ladies expressed a wish to be invited to come again next year. But this raises the question of location, for we cannot rely upon the renewal year by year of Mr. Fremlin's kind offer. Perhaps the difficulty may be solved by the purchase of a hospital tent. We have not gone into the cost very closely, but possibly £30 in not a sanguine estimate, and by good fortune our balance this year would more than half meet it.

Despite the concerns expressed by the vicar the stables of the Thatched House were used again in the following year with the same doctors in attendance with the same 'Cook-general' and the same nurses plus a Miss Scholfield.

Alan Bignall in his book Hopping Down in Kent identifies (page 163) three occupational hazards identified with hopping alongside ordinary illnesses and accidents: hop rash (caused by the irritative effects of the bines on skin); hop-eye (inflammation caused by chemicals with which hops had been dusted); and hop-wrist (caused by special wrist action used in picking hops). The British Red Cross Society did not enter Kent hop gardens until 1922.

A number of hopping extracts from the Wateringbury Parish magazine were published in the souvenir programme of 'From Sunrise to Candlelight' in 2009.

Other snippets on The Thatched House include May day 1909, A Wateringbury angel, The churchyard and old church green, and Boys Brigade.

Other hopping snippets include Hopping Dinner and The Hopping-1906