Rare pictures of the thatched roofs of old England

Thatching has been – literally – a cottage industry since Norman times, and as these rare pictures from the archive illustrate, it is a craft that has endured ever since.

Often associated with the Cotswolds, thatched houses are in fact spread across Britain and the techniques and materials vary from region to region. In Scotland, broom, rushes, cereals, bracken, turf and clay, as well as heather, have been used over the years.

The oldest surviving thatched houses in England date back to the 14th century, and some of the lower layers of thatching betray evidence of medieval soot that has remained intact beneath the newer layers above it.

Throughout the centuries that followed, thatched roofs increased in number, but also in danger. Straw was cheap and plentiful, but the risk in densely populated areas of fire spreading from one roof to another mitigated against their use. The industrial revolution, which brought with it cheap slate quarried in Wales, consigned thatched cottages to the realms of romance for most people.

Those that remain – some 60,000 of them in the UK – are mostly protected from development – though not from nature. Birds sometimes see them as giant nests or as sources of food, and the natural materials can decay and decompose over time. Insurance costs are higher than for modern roofs and maintenance much more labour intensive and specialised.

On the other hand, thatch is a natural insulator that will keep a house cool in the summer and warm in the winter, and their scarcity means that cottages with thatched roofs command premium prices on the market.

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