'At the hop-picking season tatterdemalion hordes of pickers came out from the city, and wagons were sent to the 'Well', in front of All Saints Church for a 6.30 am start. From the river one could hear the Severn Steamer, the 'Holt Castle', hooting a warning, for it too, was used to transport pickers to the hop-yards upstream. As one crossed the bridge it was a strange and beautiful scene, one to delight the eye of a Monet or a Turner, with the white mist swirling on the water, and the yellow and black smoke billowing from the funnel and mixing in strange shapes in the air, and below , the great bulk of the steamer, like a monster from below the river, hooting and roaring, as the captain gave greetings to the drivers. In the wagons, high above it all, one seemed to float on air, and the bridge and the steamer below, and the whole world, seemed unreal'.
