Roof Thatcher Scotland

Scottish thatching highlands and islands styles are quite different from what most people would think of as a thatched lowland scottish and english styles are very similar they both use cuilcor water reed norfolk reed.

Roof thatcher scotland.

This picture shows a roof we thatched in edinburgh in 1990 which with the garage totalled over 10 000sq ft of roof. Thatch was the first roofing material used in scotland and the country has one of the most diverse ranges of thatching materials and techniques found in europe. Quite rare in the highlands hence our use of about six other materials. I am not much interested in thatcher s life after 1990 when she stopped being prime minister but in her time in downing street she changed so much the conservative party british politics europe the uk arguably the world and definitely scotland.

Challis master thatchers we have been thatching roofs in the south of england for the past 12 years covering the areas of berkshire hampshire oxfordshire wiltshire and buckinghamshire. Now in some areas only one or two thatched buildings survive where once there may have been hundreds. This was the primary material used for roofing in england until the turn of the 20th century. Those that survive in anything like their original form are now rare.

It is a matter of historical fact that she changed scotland utterly and it is long enough ago for people to have forgotten that. Scotland s thatched buildings recorded for the first time all 305 of scotland s historic traditional thatched buildings have been recorded for the very first time as part of a unique field work project which lasted 18 months. Over these years we have carried out a vast variety of thatching jobs from simple repairs to full roofs. Thatch is actually a tightly woven blend of vegetation such as straw reed or rushes that is used to create a roof.

It involves layering the material and then securing the layers to the wooden beams of the roof. Materials found for thatching roofs in scotland were once extremely diverse including oat and barley straw rye reed heather bracken broom rushes marram grass grown on sand dunes and eel grass a type of marine grass. Thatching is one of the oldest building crafts. It is a very old roofing method and has been used in.

Other notable thatching milestones have been working on some of the biggest thatched roofs to be found anywhere in the uk which also happen to be in scotland. Thatched buildings were once a familiar sight in scotland but their numbers have declined since the mid 19th century.