Thatched Roofs Britain

Where applicable the eaves height is 6 ft 2m from the ground.

Thatched roofs britain.

The final thatched roof is 10 larger than the roof timbers. Thatching is the craft of building a roof with dry vegetation like straw water reed sedge rushes or heather. This method is very old and is still employed by some builders. Thatch is still employed by builders in developing countries usually with low.

A ton tonne of straw thatch using the standard method of working would cover between four and five squares of roof. A square is 100sq ft 9 25sq m. Thatched roofs can be made from a variety of materials including straw heather flax water reed or sedge. In southern england thatch was most commonly made with wheat straw while in east anglia reed was more common.

Published on aug 14 2017 it s hard to get more retro than a house covered with straw but in england thatched roofs a tradition of eras gone by have become a cool desirable home amenity. It is a very old roofing method and has been used in both tropical and temperate climates. In scotland heather was traditionally used. In fact very little research had been done into thatched roofing history in western europe until the early to mid 1990s.

Thatched cottages and farm buildings were the norm in rural britain for a millennium or more. Workmen thatching a new roof. Loosely speaking thatching is the use of straw or grasses as a building material. Holiday cottages with thatched roofs as you might imagine from a site like historic uk thatched cottages are our proverbial bread and butter.

The history of thatched roofing in great britain is not as clear as we d like it to be. Thatching is the craft of building a roof with dry vegetation such as straw water reed sedge rushes heather or palm branches layering the vegetation so as to shed water away from the inner roof. In countries like england thatched roofs are common on the oldest residential buildings. At the time of writing we currently offer 50 properties across england and scotland with the majority of these cottages in the southern english counties of kent cornwall gloucestershire including the cotswolds and oxfordshire.

The materials are layered so any moisture is kept away from the inner roof. At shearplace hall in dorset there are remains of a round hut that shows signs of thatching. That s because thatched roofing was a staple of british home construction for centuries. Using thatch for roofing goes back as far as the bronze age in britain.

A roof thatched by a skilled craftsman can last 40 to 50 years without needing refurbishment all the while providing excellent watertight insulation. A good thatched roof not only makes a country cottage picturesque it is also remarkably long lasting.