Exmoor and thatching

Exmoor and thatching

It’s Carrie again and I’m back from my leave. After IATEFL I travelled about 40 miles north from Exeter to Exmoor. Exmoor is a National Park in the south west of England. It is quite small (about 700 km²) and is mainly hilly moorland and coast, with lots of small villages, usually in the valleys.

On my first morning I drove down to Winsford (it claims to be the prettiest village on Exmoor) and right in the middle of the village, what did I see? A thatcher up on the roof of the village pub hard at work.




I screeched to a halt (OK, that’s an exaggeration – Paul will tell you, I never drive anywhere fast enough to screech to a halt), leapt out of the car and started taking photos – just for you! After the thatcher threatened to charge me £5.00 per photo (he was joking), he told me all about his job. There are more thatched roofs in the UK than in any other European country. Roofs are traditionally thatched with either wheat straw or reeds. The Royal Oak pub is being thatched with reeds.




But they can’t just use any reeds – on this building they have to be British reeds! Last summer was very wet and so there was a shortage of reeds – but the thatchers weren’t allowed to use imported reeds because the seed heads are a different colour. This seems strange to me, because when the roof is finished, the seed heads are hidden.




You can see from this photo, that the reeds are fastened together in bundles.
These are then fastened to the roof beams and then pegged in place with wooden rods. The next layer is then placed on top, finishing right on the ridge of the roof. This means that roofs are easy to repair and will keep out the wind and the rain.







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It’ll take between 3 and 4 weeks to thatch this pub and when it is finished, the roof will last for 40-50 years.

That’s all from me today: but I took some more photos on my holiday and so later this week I hope to tell you about cream teas and an endangered species of animal


Carrie

Thank you for all your comments. Modjtaba, “I’m off to Exmoor” is another way of saying “I’m going to….”. You can say “I’m off to work”, “I’m off to bed” or “I’m off home”.


screech: the sound that a car's tyres make when a car stops suddenly

imported: goods that are bought from another country for use in your own country

ridge: the top of the roof, where the two sloping sides meet