A thatcher with a three-year waiting list for his services said a shortage of straw had caused problems for his industry. Chris Dodson, who runs a thatching company based in Sawtry, Cambridgeshire, ...

The Germanic immigrants to this area brought with them the custom of rye straw roof thatching. Rye is a cereal grain similar to wheat, but with a habit of growth yielding stalks almost twice as high ...

GRASPING AT STRAWS is all the rage among a growing number of British homeowners, as Mark Phillips now shows us: When it comes to housing design, it's hard to get more retro than this: a thatched roof, ...

A master thatcher said it was important to "safeguard" the industry or otherwise villages risked "losing character". Poor harvests of long straw over the last two years, aging machinery and shortages ...

A NEW school in Ireland is training up a fresh generation of thatchers in a bid to save the country’s disappearing thatched roofs, an iconic feature of the Irish landscape. In a hall in Portnoo, ...

Often associated with chocolate box cottages in the English countryside, thatched homes actually come in all shapes and sizes and can be found around the world, with such techniques first being ...