3-096-342 - Ware in the World/Heritage Images

Row of thatched cottages at Lower Whatcombe, Dorset, c1955. Thatching is the craft of building a roof with dry vegetation such as straw, water reed, sedge (Cladium mariscus), rushes, heather, or palm branches, layering the vegetation so as to shed water away from the inner roof. Since the bulk of the vegetation stays dry and is densely packed - trapping air - thatching also functions as insulation. It is a very old roofing method and has been used in both tropical and temperate climates. In most of England, thatch remained the only roofing material available to the bulk of the population in the countryside, in many towns and villages, until the late 1800s.