writer and photographer PEN TAYLER
I crunch across the gravel to the entrance. Through the windows I can see flames in the wood burner. It’s so enticing on this cold crisp day in Ranelagh that I can almost feel the warmth despite the wall between me and the burner.
It’s a decade since I was here to photograph this building, and it has been transformed.
After heating up by the wood burner in the light-filled extension, Carolyn Holmes takes me through to the old hop kiln itself. Looking up six or seven metres, the timber beams that make up the drying floor are just as they were when I was last here, which was just as they were more than 100 years ago when the kiln was built. The interior walls are still the same but the general difference is remarkable. Instead of an empty space originally designed with fireplaces to heat the hops on the drying floor, there are tables, chairs with warm rugs, and a comfortable couch.
Hops were first planted on the Clifton property in 1912 as an adjunct to a thriving orchard. To dry the hops the owner, Thomas Frankcomb, converted their wooden barn to a hop kiln, the one I’m standing in. In 2006, after about 150 years of ownership by the Frankcomb family, Sonia and Steve Fluke bought Clifton, and renovated the hop kiln building reusing everything possible, right down to the nails.
In 2019, Carolyn and Graeme Holmes were drawn from NSW to Tasmania by a love of historic properties, plus the relaxed lifestyle Tasmania offers. They in turn bought Clifton, and Carolyn Holmes set about creating something that would do justice to the building. She has ensured that as much as possible was repurposed including windows, timbers, and pressed metal, while the lighting is designed to replicate a working building.
Today the old press still stands where it was a decade ago but now it’s surrounded by tables and chairs. I wander up a lovely set of wooden stairs added by Carolyn to the mezzanine floor, remembering the awkward climb up a vertical wooden ladder. There are more tables and chairs up here, plus the warmth from the wood burner. On my way I pass by the entrance to the drying floor. The walls are still covered in the same black cloth and looking up to the turret is the same as it would have looked when it was first built.
As I lean over the railing and watch the activity of the eatery below, I think about Carolyn’s comment to me, “The building was essentially saying, ‘Hey you’ve got to do more with me – I’ve been a working building, I want to continue to be, and to be around for the next 100 years’.”
When I photographed the hop kiln 10 years ago for my book, I spent many hours inside, getting a feel for it. it. The renovation is true to the former self. It is a wonderful use of the space and a great way of keeping Tasmania’s rural history alive.
The Kiln Eatery is at 2 Louisa St, Ranelagh. For more information, see thekilneatery.com.au
For more information on Hop Kilns of Tasmania, by Pen Tayler, see shop.fortysouth.com.au/products/hop-kilns-of-tasmania
Pen Tayler is a Tasmanian writer and photographer. She photographed 12 towns for Towns of Tasmania, written by Bert Spinks, and has written and provided images for Hop Kilns of Tasmania (both Forty South Publishing). She has also written a book about Prospect House and Belmont House in the Coal River Valley.