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Thatching is intrinsic to childhood: visit woods, build a den, lay bracken over the structure – and voilà! You’re a thatcher! For most of us, the experience remains in childhood, bathed in nostalgia. Bucking the trend, English graduate Tom Allan realised that neither city-living nor office jobs were for him. Taking a life risk (something of which most of us are shy) he quit his career in publishing, returned to the Scottish Borders, where he’d grown up on a smallholding, and married. The next move was with his wife to a leaky caravan in south Devon. There he began an unpaid internship with the National Trust. Alerted of a thatching apprenticeship – reputedly as rare as hen’s teeth – he almost let the golden opportunity slip through his fingers.
Seizing the day (or water reed) led to a life-transforming passion. Now Allan is an ardent advocate of ‘roofing with plants’ as he calls it, an ancient tradition that speaks to our relationship with the land, furnished with its own jewelled, picaresque lingo: ‘nitches, yealming, butt ends, spotting’.
The appeal is understandable. AI and tech may be advancing with startling alacrity, yet we are wired to work with our hands. Thatching, as Allan’s mentor explains to him, is less about measuring and ‘all about feel’. Learning from others is key; a dazzling array of materials and designs differ country to country, even thatcher to thatcher. Luckily, Instagram connects Allan with his peers. Journeying to Norfolk and Suffolk, Allan coppices hazel in a ‘dogging wood’, where ‘knickers and used condoms are often found dangling from the understory’. He learns, improbably, of a decorative motif of scallops and triangles cut into a thick capping of wheat, known as ‘tits and arses’, created by East Anglian thatchers.
He travels to Scotland, Laesø (a Danish island), the Netherlands, the Danube delta and, latterly, Japan, seeking out thatchers and reed cutters and learning important facts. Sea-grass, for example, is an excellent insulator – might biomass materials offer the way forward for sustainable heating? Usefully, Allan possesses a writer’s eye for the idiosyncratic; many of the practitioners he meets were once ravers or ex-pirate radio DJs. In Rotterdam, while thatching on a roof, he raves to ‘gabber’, a manic dance style originating in the Netherlands. In Japan, he sanguinely observes that a woman is wearing a hat knitted from her dog’s fur.
If thatching dwells in tradition, it also speaks to current market forces. In a reversal of status symbols, Allan discovers its presence on an oligarch’s summerhouse in Romania, kept specifically for partying with escorts. Thatching, once the domain of peasants (like suntans acquired from tilling fields), is now a sign of wealth. If it is costly, it is coveted. Yet he also notes the dubious creep of modernity. For four decades, the Dutch have been making thatch made of plastic, which will only become increasingly ‘realistic’-looking. Decrying its existence, Allan is also pragmatic. As skilled as it is repetitive, the craft is either mindful or menial, depending on whether one has chosen it, or been forced to do it in the absence of other options. Moving from the parochial to the political, Covid and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine happen in real time, affecting market forces and trading, providing present-day punch.
Tradition holds its root in the Latin tradere – to hand over. Allan’s is literally a ‘hands-on’ craft. The chocolate-box thatched cottage is of its time, while the wish to leave our mark on the world is universal. His adventure, structured as neatly as the thatching he describes, is both love letter to an ancient craft and exultant ode to living your truest life. Interiors are exquisite, yet what more tangible legacy could there be than placing a roof over one’s head?
A version of this article also appeared in the October 2024 issue of ‘The World of Interiors’. Learn about our subscription offers. Sign up for our bi-weekly newsletter, and be the first to receive exclusive stories like this one, direct to your inbox
