January 2025

4 Buckden Roundabout January 2025 Silver Street Makeover Residents who frequently use Silver Street will have noticed that one of the houses, number 50, has recently had a makeo- ver with a beautiful new thatch. For 3 months until early No- vember, Master Thatcher Tony Dolton, and his assistant Jona- thon Shrapnell, worked on the house. The result is a beautiful- ly manicured thatch with an impressive block ridge, which should last for another 35 years. Tony, a local tradesman from Grafham with 40 years experi- ence, used long straw from Essex for the thatching material. Twenty round bales of straw were used for this one roof. Each bale weighed over 900 kilograms in weight, which gives you some feel for the amount of straw used. Thatch is a traditional roofing material in many parts of Eng- land. It has rich regional traditions that contribute to the dis- tinctiveness of local buildings. Thatch also has important ar- chaeological value; for example, in some roofs medieval thatch survives below more recent layers. Unfortunately, conserving traditional thatch is a challenge as there are occasional short- ages of good quality materials. Some thatchers prefer to use imported materials and methods rather than home - grown thatch prepared and applied in the traditional way. Further- more, the understanding and skills required to conserve tradi- tional thatch are slowly being lost. Tony sometimes imports material from Ukraine but still uses traditional building meth- ods. Developing the necessary skills is a long process - Jona- than took a 7 year apprenticeship and admits that he is still learning! Thatched roofs are not just the preserve of quaint English vil- lages and can be found all over the world. In some parts of Japan, for example, snowfalls can be so severe that a steeply pitched roof going almost to the ground is essential during win- ter months. In England, many plants have been used for thatching and, from medieval times, cultivated cereal straw (particularly wheat and to a lesser degree rye) was the predominant thatch- ing material in lowland areas. Across most of lowland England, harvested straw was flailed to remove the grain, which slightly crushed parts of the stems; known as long straw this was the main thatching material for centuries. In parts of the South West, the grain was removed more carefully without crushing the stem, and the straw was combed to remove the leaf and produce what we now call combed wheat reed. In the Norfolk Broads (following the end of peat extraction for fuel) and some estuarine and fenland areas, reed beds were managed to produce water reed for thatching. In some coastal, heathland, and upland areas of England, the use of local wild plants such as marram grass, sedge, bulrush, bracken, heather, and gorse persisted much longer than in lowland areas, but had almost ceased by the mid - 20th century. Many thatched properties are of archaeological and historical importance. The significance of thatch derives from much more than just its visual qualities. Where a roof retains an his- toric base coat or remnants of previous coats of thatch (as is often the case with straw - thatched roofs), these archaeological remains have the potential to yield evidence of past thatching materials, fixings and techniques. Through the presence of different types of cereal straw and even weeds, it can also tell us much about the past agriculture and wider environment of a locality and may even indicate what type of bread people ate in the past! Medieval smoke - blackened thatch is considered by (Continued on page 5) Thatch 50 Silver Street Silver Street 1909, before and after the fire