Oast

They consist of two or three storeys on which the hops were spread out to be dried by hot air from a wood or charcoal-fired kiln at the bottom. The drying floors were thin and perforated to permit the heat to pass through and it escaped through a cowl in the roof which turned with the wind.

The freshly picked hops from the fields were raked in to dry and then raked out to cool before being bagged up and sent to the brewery. The Kentish dialect word Kell was sometimes used for kilns ("The oast has three kells.") and sometimes to mean the oast itself ("Take this lunchbox to your father, he's working in the kell.").
The earliest surviving oast house is that at Cranbrook near Tunbridge Wells which dates to 1750 but the process is documented from soon after the introduction of hops into England in the early 16th century.

Early oast houses were simply adapted barns but, by the early 19th century, the distinctive circular buildings with conical roofs had been developed in response to the increased demand for beer. Square oast houses appeared early in the 20th century as they were found to be easier to build.These vast buildings can process hops from several farms, as at Norton near Teynham, built in 1982.
Construction
The South East
Oasts were built of various materials, including bricks, timber, ragstone, sandstone. Cladding could be timber weatherboards, corrugated iron or asbestos sheet.
Stowage
Many oasts were timber framed buildings, although some were built entirely in brick, or ragstone if this was available locally.

Some oasts were entirely brick except the front and floors, which were timber.
Kilns
Internal kilns were built of timber or bricks. External kilns were built from bricks, ragstone, ragstone and bricks, or sandstone.

A few oasts had square kilns with brick roofs, again covered in tar or pitch. Often kiln roofs have to be rebuilt, and cowls provided on converted oasts.
The earliest example of an oast being converted to a house is Millar's Farm oast, Meopham, which was house-converted in 1903 by Sir Philip Waterlow.
Other conversions of oasts for non-residential purposes include a theatre (Oast Theatre, Tonbridge, Oast house Theatre Rainham, a Youth Hostel (Capstone Farm, Rochester, another at Lady Margaret Manor, Doddington - now a residential centre for people with learning difficulties), a school (Sturry), a visitor centre (Bough Beech reservoir) offices (Tatlingbury Farm, Five Oak Green and a museum (Kent Museum of Rural Life, Sandling, Preston Street, Faversham, Wye College, Wye and the former Whitbread Hop Farm at Beltring.
The National Trust owns an oast at Chartwell which has very rare octagonal cowls, one at (Castle Farm, Sissinghurst), converted to tea rooms and another at Batemans, Burwash which has been converted to a shop, with the cowl being replaced by a dovecot.
Fake oasts
In recent years, a number of buildings have been erected to look as though they were oasts, although in fact that is not the case. Examples of this are:-
Early Bird public house, Grove Green, Maidstone.
Harrietsham, a group of offices.
The Oast House public house, Normanton.
Langley Court, Beckenham, built by the Wellcome Foundation, now part of Glaxo Wellcome.
Caring, Kent - Houses built in the form of oasts.
South Harrow, Middlesex - a pub built in the form of an oast.

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