THE days when droves of hop pickers made their way to Bromyard each autumn are recalled in an exhibition at the Hop Pocket, in Bishops Frome.

Mandy Palmer, of the Bromyard and District Local History Society, said every September locals were joined by hop pickers armed with tin trunks arriving by train, lorry and charabancs from the Black Country and South Wales.

“Hop yards were a familiar feature of the countryside around Bromyard and along the Frome and Teme Valley,s with a few acres on many farms being devoted to hops up until the 1960s,” she said. “It was a hard ‘working holiday’ but at the end of the month they returned home with apples, damsons, potatoes and bunches of hops for their chapel and church harvest festivals, sun tanned, fitter, and with extra money for the months ahead in their pockets.”

The exhibition is open during normal Hop Pocket hours, from 10am-5.30pm Tuesday to Saturday and 11am-5pm on Sunday.