Rural Life - Kent on Film DVD Volume Two

Featuring rare moving images of Kent from the 1930s, Volume Two in our DVD series, ‘Kent on Film’, presents remarkable films of rural Kent from the film collections held by Screen Archive South East.

The films present many different aspects of rural Kentish communities at work and play during the 1930s. They include scenes drawn from the agricultural year including ploughing, planting, the preparation of a traditional hop garden, harvesting and tree felling. Particular activities include fruit and hop picking, the harvesting of wheat and the annual Egerton May Fair. The DVD concludes with the film Country Rhapsody, a cine-poem dedicated to the beauty of the rural world.

There are five films on the Rural Life DVD:

In England's Garden (1930s)
This film by Spot Botting is dedicated to, “the true spirit of rural Kent.” A sequence devoted to the beauty of the natural world is followed by scenes of tree-felling, ploughing, harvesting and hop picking.

Egerton May Festivals (1935; 1936)
Spot Botting recorded many of the annual May festivals held in Egerton during the 1930s. Each festival featured the crowning of the May Queen, maypole dancing, fancy dress parades and Kentish ‘hooden horses’. The 1935 festival marked the Silver Jubilee of King George V.

Our Daily Bread (Mid -1930s)
Ernest Botting known, as ‘Spot’, was a shopkeeper in the village Egerton near Ashford. Throughout the 1930s he made films on life in and around the village. His films are a unique record of inter-war rural life. This film presents scenes of ploughing, planting and harvesting.

In the Hop Fields of Kent (ca. 1937)
F. P. Barnitt’s film is a portrait of a year in the life of a hop garden from its preparation through to the picking and drying of hops. In the early 16thC hops were introduced into England by Flemish traders and by the mid-17thC Kent accounted for about a third of the country’s hop acreage.

Country Rhapsody (ca. late - 1930s)
This film is F. P. Barnitt’s cine-poem to the countryside, inspired by the rural world of Kent. It reflects the changing seasons and offers a romantic view of work on the land.