Hall history

Originally built as the Cranbrook Mission, the hall was also known as the Hop-pickers’ Chapel.

Kent was once a major producer of hops for the brewing industry, having some 27,000 acres of hop gardens in 1853. Before mechanisation, the hops were principally harvested by families travelling by train from London on the Hop Pickers Line to Cranbrook and other local stations and also by travellers. The conditions in which these families lived was very primitive; often crowded tin huts with straw bedding and no proper sanitation, but possibly better than the conditions in smoke filled London since the hop picking was considered a holiday.

To help provide some comfort, a number of clergymen set up the Hop Pickers Mission which offered food and support to families in need and the Cranbrook Mission was one of the centres for such help.

In 1968, the Crane Lodge of Freemasons bought the chapel and built an extension, enabling the Masons to hold their first meeting on the 11th January 1971. The Hall is now a centre for freemasonry where a number of Lodges and other Orders hold their meetings.